THE GOLDEN BOUGH
5\
i
.
THE
GOLDEN BOUGH
A STUDY
IN MAGIC AND RELIGION
BY
J. G. FRAZER, D.C.L., LL.D., Litt.D.
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. I
Honfcon
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
I9OO
All rights reserved
First Edition (2 vols. Svo) 1890.
Second Edition (3 vols. 8vo) 1900.
<
TO
MY FRIEND
WILLIAM ROBERTSON SMITH
IN
GRATITUDE AND ADMIRATION
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
For some time I have been preparing a general work on
primitive superstition and religion. Among the problems
which had attracted my attention was the hitherto unex-
plained rule of the Arician priesthood ; and last spring it
happened that in the course of my reading I came across
some facts which, combined with others I had noted before,
suggested an explanation of the rule in question. As the
explanation, if correct, promised to throw light on some
obscure features of primitive religion, I resolved to develop
it fully, and, detaching it from my general work, to issue it
as a separate study. This book is the result.
Now that the theory, which necessarily presented itself
to me at first in outline, has been worked out in detail, I
cannot but feel that in some places I may have pushed it
too far. If this should prove to have been the case, I will
readily acknowledge and retract my error as soon as it is
brought home to me. Meantime my essay may serve its
purpose as a first attempt to solve a difficult problem, and
to brino- a varietv of scattered facts into some sort of order
and system.
A justification is perhaps needed of the length at which I
have dwelt upon the popular festivals observed by European
peasants in spring, at midsummer, and at harvest. It can
hardly be too often repeated, since it is not yet generally
recognised, that in spite of their fragmentary character the
viii THE GOLDEN BOUGH
popular superstitions and customs of the peasantry are by far
the fullest and most trustworthy evidence we possess as to
the primitive religion of the Aryans. Indeed the primitive
Aryan, in all that regards his mental fibre and texture, is
not extinct. He is amongst us to this day. The great
intellectual and moral forces which have revolutionised the
educated world have scarcely affected the peasant. In his
inmost beliefs he is what his forefathers were in the days
when forest trees still grew and squirrels played on the
ground where Rome and London now stand.
Hence every inquiry into the primitive religion of the
Aryans should either start from the superstitious beliefs and
observances of the peasantry, or should at least be constantly
checked and controlled by reference to them. Compared
with the evidence afforded by living tradition, the testimony
of ancient books on the subject of early religion is worth
very little. For literature accelerates the advance of thought
at a rate which leaves the slow progress of opinion by word
of mouth at an immeasurable distance behind. Two or
three generations of literature may do more to change
thought than two or three thousand years of traditional life.
But the mass of the people who do not read books remain
unaffected by the mental revolution wrought by literature ;
and so it has come about that in Europe at the present
day the superstitious beliefs and practices which have been
handed down by word of mouth are generally of a far more
archaic type than the religion depicted in the most ancient
literature of the Aryan race.
It is on these grounds that, in discussing the meaning
and origin of an ancient Italian priesthood, I have devoted
so much attention to the popular customs and superstitions
of modern Europe. In this part of my subject I have made
great use of the works of the late W. Mannhardt, without
which, indeed, my book could scarcely have been written.
Fully recognising the truth of the principles which I have
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION ix
imperfectly stated, Mannhardt set himself systematically
to collect, compare, and explain the living superstitions of
the peasantry. Of this wide field the special department
which he marked out for himself was the religion of the
woodman and the farmer, in other words, the superstitious
beliefs and rites connected with trees and cultivated plants.
By oral inquiry, and by printed questions scattered broad-
cast over Europe, as well as by ransacking the literature of
folk-lore, he collected a mass of evidence, part of which he
published in a series of admirable works. But his health,
always feeble, broke down before he could complete the
comprehensive and really vast scheme which he had planned,
and at his too early death much of his precious materials
remained unpublished. His manuscripts are now deposited
in the University Library at Berlin, and in the interest of
the study to which he devoted his life it is greatly to be
desired that they should be examined, and that such por-
tions of them as he has not utilised in his books should be
given to the world.
Of his published works the most important are, first, two
tracts, Roggemvolf und Roggcnhund, Danzig, 1865 (second
edition, Danzig, 1866), and Die Kornddmonen, Berlin, 1868.
These little works were put forward by him tentatively, in
the hope of exciting interest in his inquiries and thereby
securing the help of others in pursuing them. But except
from a few learned societies, they met with very little atten-
tion. Undeterred by the cold reception accorded to his
efforts he worked steadily on, and in 1875 published his
chief work, Der Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nach-
barstamme. This was followed in 1877 by Antike Wald-
und Feldkulte. His Mythologische Forschungen, a posthumous
work, appeared in 1884.1
1 For the sake of brevity I have Roggemvolf (the references are to the
sometimes, in the notes, referred to pages of the first edition), Korndd-
Mannhardt's works respectively as monen, B.K., A. W.F., and M.F.
x THE GOLDEN BOUGH
Much as I owe to Mannhardt, I owe still more to my
friend Professor W. Robertson Smith. My interest in the
early history of society was first excited by the works of
Dr. E. B. Tylor, which opened up a mental vista undreamed
of by me before. But it is a long step from a lively interest
in a subject to a systematic study of it ; and that I took
this step is due to the influence of my friend W. Robertson
Smith. The debt which I owe to the vast stores of his
knowledge, the abundance and fertility of his ideas, and his
unwearied kindness, can scarcely be overestimated. Those
who know his writings may form some, though a very in-
adequate, conception of the extent to which I have been
influenced by him. The views of sacrifice set forth in his
article " Sacrifice " in the Encyclopedia Britannica, and
further developed in his recent work, The Religion of the
Semites, mark a new departure in the historical study of
religion, and ample traces of them will be found in this
book. Indeed the central idea of my essay — the conception
of the slain god — is derived directly, I believe, from my
friend. But it is due to him to add that he is in no way
responsible for the general explanation which I have offered
of the custom of slaying the god. He has read the greater
part of the proofs in circumstances which enhanced the
kindness, and has made many valuable suggestions which
I have usually adopted ; but except where he is cited by
name, or where the views expressed coincide with those of
his published works, he is not to be regarded as necessarily
assenting to any of the theories propounded in this book.
The works of Professor G. A. Wilken of Leyden have
been of great service in directing me to the best original
authorities on the Dutch East Indies, a very important field
to the ethnologist. To the courtesy of the Rev. Walter
Gregor, M.A., of Pitsligo, I am indebted for some interesting
communications which will be found acknowledged in their
proper places. Mr. Francis Darwin has kindly allowed me
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION xi
to consult him on some botanical questions. The manuscript
authorities to which I occasionally refer are answers to a
list of ethnological questions which I am circulating. Most
of them will, I hope, be published in the Journal of the
Anthropological Institute.
The drawing of the Golden Bough which adorns the
cover is from the pencil of my friend Professor J. H.
Middleton. The constant interest and sympathy which he
has shown in the progress of the book have been a great
help and encouragement to me in writing it.
The Index has been compiled by Mr. A. Rogers, of the
University Library, Cambridge.
J. G. FRAZER.
Trinity College, Cambridge,
%th March 1S90.
49
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
The kind reception accorded by critics and the public to
the first edition of The Golden Bough has encouraged me to
spare no pains to render the new one more worthy of their
approbation. While the original book remains almost entire,
it has been greatly expanded by the insertion of much fresh
illustrative matter, drawn chiefly from further reading, but in
part also from previous collections which I had made, and
still hope to use, for another work. Friends and corre-
spondents, some of them personally unknown to me, have
kindly aided me in various ways, especially by indicating
facts or sources which I had overlooked and by correcting
mistakes into which I had fallen. I thank them all for
their help, of which I have often availed myself. Their
contributions will be found acknowledged in their proper
places. But I owe a special acknowledgment to my friends
the Rev. Lorimer Fison and the Rev. John Roscoe, who have
sent me valuable notes on the Fijian and Waganda customs
respectively. Most of Mr. Fison's notes, I believe, are
incorporated in my book. Of Mr. Roscoe's only a small
selection has been given ; the whole series, embracing a
general account of the customs and beliefs of the Waganda,
will be published, I hope, in the Journal of the Anthropo-
logical Institute. Further, I ought to add that Miss Mary
E. B. Howitt has kindly allowed me to make some extracts
vol. i b
xiv ' THE GOLDEN BOUGH
from a work by her on Australian folklore land legends
which I was privileged to read in manuscript.
I have seen no reason to withdraw the explanation of
the priesthood of Aricia which forms the central theme of
my book. On the contrary the probability of that explana-
tion appears to me to be greatly strengthened by some
important evidence which has come to light since my theory
was put forward. Readers of the first edition may remember
that I explained the priest of Aricia — the King of the
Wood — as an embodiment of a tree-spirit, and inferred
from a variety of considerations that at an earlier period
one of these priests had probably been slain every year in
his character of an incarnate deity. But for an undoubted
parallel to such a custom of killing a human god annually I
had to go as far as ancient Mexico. Now from the
Martyrdom of St. Dasius, unearthed and published a few
years ago by Professor Franz Cumont of Ghent [Analecta
Bollandiana, xvi. 1897), it is practically certain that in
ancient Italy itself a human representative of Saturn — the
old god of the seed — was put to death every year at his
festival of the Saturnalia, and that though in Rome itself
the custom had probably fallen into disuse before the
classical era, it still lingered on in remote places down
at least to the fourth century after Christ. I cannot but
regard this discovery as a confirmation, as welcome as it
was unlooked for, of the theory of the Arician priesthood
which I had been led independently to propound.
Further, the general interpretation which, following W.
Mannhardt, I had given of the ceremonies observed by our
European peasantry in spring, at midsummer, and at harvest,
has also been corroborated by fresh and striking analogies.
If we are right, these ceremonies were originally magical
rites designed to cause plants to grow, cattle to thrive, rain
to fall, and the sun to shine. Now the remarkable researches
of Professor Baldwin Spencer and Mr. F. J. Gillen among the
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xv
native tribes of Central Australia have proved that these
savages regularly perform magical ceremonies for the express
purpose of bringing down rain and multiplying the plants
and animals on which they subsist, and further that these
ceremonies are most commonly observed at the approach of
the rainy season, which in Central Australia answers to our
spring. Here then, at the other side of the world, we find
an exact counterpart of those spring and midsummer rites
which our rude forefathers in Europe probably performed
with a full consciousness of their meaning, and which many
of their descendants still keep up, though the original in-
tention of the rites has been to a great extent, but by no
means altogether, forgotten. The harvest customs of our
European peasantry have naturally no close analogy among
the practices of the Australian aborigines, since these savages
do not till the ground. But what we should look for in
vain among the Australians we find to hand among the
Malays. For recent inquiries, notably those of Mr. J. L.
van der Toorn in Sumatra and of Mr. W. W. Skeat in the
Malay Peninsula, have supplied us with close parallels to the
harvest customs of Europe, as these latter were interpreted
by the genius of Mannhardt. Occupying a lower plane of
culture than ourselves, the Malays have retained a keen
sense of the significance of rites which in Europe have sunk
to the level of more or less meaningless survivals.
Thus on the whole I cannot but think that the course of
subsequent investigation has tended to confirm the general
principles followed and the particular conclusions reached in
this book. At the same time I am as sensible as ever of the
hypothetical nature of much that is advanced in it. It has
been my wish and intention to draw as^sharply as possible
the line of demarcation between my facts and the hypotheses
by which I have attempted to colligate them. Hypotheses
are necessary but often temporary bridges built to connect
isolated facts. If my light bridges should sooner or later
xvi THE GOLDEN BOUGH
break down or be superseded by more solid structures, I
hope that my book may still have its utility and its interest
as a repertory of facts.
But while my views, tentative and provisional as they
probably are, thus remain much what they were, there is one
subject on which they have undergone a certain amount of
change, unless indeed it might be more exact to say that I
seem to see clearly now what before was hazy. I mean
the relation of magic to religion. When I first wrote this
book I failed, perhaps inexcusably, to define even to myself
my notion of religion, and hence was disposed to class magic
loosely under it as one of its lower forms. I have now
sought to remedy this defect by framing as clear a defini-
tion of religion as the difficult nature of the subject and
my apprehension of it allowed. Hence I have come to
agree with Sir A. C. Lyall and Mr. F. B. Jevons in re-
cognising a fundamental distinction and even opposition of
principle between magic and religion. More than that, I
believe that in the evolution of thought, magic, as represent-
ing a lower intellectual stratum, has probably everywhere
preceded religion. I do not claim any originality for this
latter view. It has been already plainly suggested, if not
definitely formulated, by Professor H. Oldenberg in his able
book Die Religion des Veda, and for aught I know it may
have been explicitly stated by many others before and since
him. I have not collected the opinions of the learned on the
subject, but have striven to form my own directly from the
facts. And the facts which bespeak the priority of magic
over religion are many and weighty. Some of them the
reader will find stated in the following pages ; but the full
force of the evidence can only be appreciated by those who
have made a long and patient study of primitive superstition.
I venture to think that those who submit to this drudgery
will come more and more to the opinion I have indicated.
That all my readers should agree either with my definition
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xvii
of religion or with the inferences I have drawn from it is
not to be expected. But I would ask those who dissent
from my conclusions to make sure that they mean the same
thing by religion that I do ; for otherwise the difference
between us may be more apparent than real.
As the scope and purpose of my book have been
seriously misconceived by some courteous critics, I desire
to repeat in more explicit language, what I vainly thought
I had made quite clear in my original preface, that this is not
a general treatise on primitive superstition, but merely the
investigation of one particular and narrowly limited problem,
to wit, the rule of the Arician priesthood, and that accord-
ingly only such general principles are explained and
illustrated in the course of it as seemed to me to throw
light on that special problem. If I have said little or
nothing of other principles of equal or even greater im-
portance, it is assuredly not because I undervalue them in
comparison with those which I have expounded at some
length, but simply because it appeared to me that they did
not directly bear on the question I had set myself to answer.
No one can well be more sensible than I am of the im-
mense variety and complexity of the forces which have
gone towards the building up of religion ; no one can
recognise more frankly the futility and inherent absurdity
of any attempt to explain the whole vast organism as the
product of any one simple factor. If I have hitherto
touched, as I am quite aware, only the fringe of a great
subject — fingered only a few of the countless threads that
compose the mighty web, — it is merely because neither my
time nor my knowledge has hitherto allowed me to do more.
Should I live to complete the works for which I have
collected and am collecting materials, I dare to think that
they will clear me of any suspicion of treating the early
history of religion from a single narrow point of view. But
the future is necessarily uncertain, and at the best many
xviii THE GOLDEN BOUGH
years must elapse before I can execute in full the plan
which I have traced out for myself. Meanwhile I am
unwilling by keeping silence to leave some of my readers
under the impression that my outlook on so large a subject
does not reach beyond the bounds of the present inquiry.
This is my reason for noticing the misconceptions to which
I have referred. I take leave to add that some part of my
larger plan would probably have been completed before now,
were it not that out of the ten years which have passed since
this book was first published nearly eight have been spent
by me in work of a different kind.
There is a misunderstanding of another sort which I feel
constrained to set right. But I do so with great reluctance,
because it compels me to express a measure of dissent from
the revered friend and master to whom I am under the
deepest obligations, and who has passed beyond the reach
of controversy. In an elaborate and learned essay on
sacrifice {IJ Annie Sociologique, Deuxieme Annee, 1897-
1898), Messrs. H. Hubert and M. Mauss have represented
my theory of the slain god as intended to supplement and
complete Robertson Smith's theory of the derivation of
animal sacrifice in general from a totem sacrament. On
this I have to say that the two theories are quite inde-
pendent of each other. I never assented to my friend's
theory, and so far as I can remember he never gave me a
hint that he assented to mine. My reason for suspending
my judgment in regard to his theory was a simple one. At
the time when the theory was propounded, and for many
years afterwards, I knew of no single indubitable case of
a totem sacrament, that is, of a custom of killing and
eating the totem animal as a solemn rite. It is true that
in my Totemism, and again in the present work, I noted a
few cases (four in all) of solemnly killing a sacred animal
which, following Robertson Smith, I regarded as probably
a totem. But none even of these four cases included the
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xix
eating of the sacred animal by the worshippers, which was
an essential part of my friend's theory, and in regard to all
of them it was not positively known that the slain animal
was a totem. Hence as time went on and still no certain
case of a totem sacrament was reported, I became more and
more doubtful of the existence of such a practice at all, and
my doubts had almost hardened into incredulity when the
long-looked-for rite was discovered by Messrs. Spencer and
Gillen in full force among the aborigines of Central Australia,
whom I for one must consider to be the most primitive
totem tribes as yet known to us. This discovery I wel-
comed as a very striking proof of the sagacity of my
brilliant friend, whose rapid genius had outstripped our slower
methods and anticipated what it was reserved for subsequent
research positively to ascertain. Thus from being little
more than an ingenious hypothesis the totem sacrament has
become, at least in my opinion, a well-authenticated fact.
But from the practice of the rite by a single set of tribes it
is still a long step to the universal practice of it by all totem
tribes, and from that again it is a still longer stride to the
deduction therefrom of animal sacrifice in general. These
two steps I am not yet prepared to take. No one will
welcome further evidence of the wide prevalence of a totem
sacrament more warmly than I shall, but until it is forth-
coming I shall continue to agree with Professor E. B. Tylor
that it is unsafe to make the custom the base of far-reaching
speculations.
To conclude this subject, I will add that the doctrine of
the universality of totemism, which Messrs. Hubert and
Mauss have implicitly attributed to me, is one which I
have never enunciated or assumed, and that, so far as my
knowledge and opinion go, the worship of trees and cereals,
which occupies so large a space in these volumes, is neither
identical with nor derived from a system of totemism. It
is possible that further inquiry may lead me to regard as
xx THE GOLDEN BOUGH
probable the universality of totemism and the derivation
from it of sacrifice and of the whole worship both of
plants and animals. I hold myself ready to follow the
evidence wherever it may lead ; but in the present state
of our knowledge I consider that to accept these conclusions
would be, not to follow the evidence, but very seriously to
outrun it. In thinking so I am happy to be at one with
Messrs. Hubert and Mauss.
When I am on this theme I may as well say that I am
\>y no means prepared to stand by everything in my little
apprentice work, Totemism. That book was a rough piece
of pioneering in a field that, till then, had been but little
explored, and some inferences in it were almost certainly
too hasty. In particular there was a tendency, perhaps not
unnatural in the circumstances, to treat as totems, or as con-
nected with totemism, things which probably were neither
the one nor the other. If ever I republish the volume,
as I hope one day to do, I shall have to retrench it in
some directions as well as to enlarge it in others.
Such as it is, with all its limitations, which I have tried
to indicate clearly, and with all its defects, which I leave to
the critics to discover, I offer my book in its new form as
a contribution to that still youthful science which seeks
to trace the growth of human thought and institutions in
those dark ages which lie beyond the range of history. The
progress of that science must needs be slow and painful, for
the evidence, though clear and abundant on some sides, is
lamentably obscure and scanty on others, so that the cautious
inquirer is every now and then brought up sharp on the edge
of some yawning chasm across which he may be quite unable
to find a way. All he can do in such a case is to mark the
pitfall plainly on his chart and to hope that others in time
may be able to fill it up or bridge it over. Yet the very
difficulty and novelty of the investigation, coupled with the
extent of the intellectual prospect which suddenly opens up
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xxi
before us whenever the mist rises and unfolds the far horizon,
constitute no small part of its charm. The position of the
anthropologist of to-day resembles in some sort the position
of classical scholars at the revival of learning. To these
men the rediscovery of ancient literature came like a reve-
lation, disclosing to their wondering eyes a splendid vision
of the antique world, such as the cloistered student of the
Middle Ages never dreamed of under the gloomy shadow
of the minster and within the sound of its solemn
bells. To us moderns a still wider vista is vouchsafed, a
greater panorama is unrolled by the study which aims at
bringing home to us the faith and the practice, the hopes
and the ideals, not of two highly gifted races only, but of all
mankind, and thus at enabling us to follow the long march,
the slow and toilsome ascent, of humanity from savagery to
civilisation. And as the scholar of the Renascence found
not merely fresh food for thought but a new field of labour
in the dusty and faded manuscripts of Greece and Rome, so
in the mass of materials that is steadily pouring in from
many sides — from buried cities of remotest antiquity as well
as from the rudest savages of the desert and the jungle — we
of to-day must recognise a new province of knowledge which
will task the energies of generations of students to master.
The study is still in its rudiments, and what we do now
will have to be done over again and done better, with fuller
knowledge and deeper insight, by those who come after us.
To recur to a metaphor which I have already made use of,
we of this age are only pioneers hewing lanes and clearings
in the forest where others will hereafter sow and reap.
But the comparative study of the beliefs and institutions
of mankind is fitted to be much more than a means of
satisfying an enlightened curiosity and of furnishing materials
for the researches of the learned. Well handled, it may
become a powerful instrument to expedite progress if it lays
bare certain weak spots in the foundations on which modern
xxii THE GOLDEN BOUGH
society is built — if it shows that much which we are wont
to regard as solid rests on the sands of superstition rather
than on the rock of nature. It is indeed a melancholy and
in some respects thankless task to strike at the foundations
of beliefs in which, as in a strong tower, the hopes and
aspirations of humanity through long ages have sought a
refuge from the storm and stress of life. Yet sooner or
later it is inevitable that the battery of the comparative
method should breach these venerable walls, mantled over
with the ivy and mosses and wild flowers of a thousand
tender and sacred associations. At present we are only
dragging the guns into position : they have hardly yet
begun to speak. The task of building up into fairer and
more enduring forms the old structures so rudely shattered
is reserved for other hands, perhaps for other and happier
ages. We cannot foresee, we can hardly even guess, the
new forms into which thought and society will run in the
future. Yet this uncertainty ought not to induce us, from
any consideration of expediency or regard for antiquity, to
spare the ancient moulds, however beautiful, when these are
proved to be out-worn. J&kai£vex_cojnj^_jfJ^
jt leads us, we must follow truth_aJefre. It is our only
guiding star : hoc signo viuccs.
To a passage in my book it has been objected by a dis-
tinguished scholar that the church-bells of Rome cannot be
heard, even in the stillest weather, on the shores of the Lake
of Nemi. In acknowledging my blunder and leaving it
uncorrected, may I plead in extenuation of my obduracy
the example of an illustrious writer ? In Old Mortality we
read how a hunted Covenanter, fleeing before Claverhouse's
dragoons, hears the sullen boom of the kettledrums of the
pursuing cavalry borne to him on the night wind. When
Scott was taken to task for this description, because the
drums are not beaten by cavalry at night, he replied in
effect that he liked to hear the drums sounding here, and
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xxiii
that he would let them sound on so long as his book might
last. In the same spirit I make bold to say that by the
Lake of Nemi I love to hear, if it be only in imagination,
the distant chiming of the bells of Rome, and I would fain
believe that their airy music may ring in the ears of my
readers after it has ceased to vibrate in my own.
J. G. FRAZER.
Cambridge,
\%th September 1900.
v
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE KING OF THE WOOD, pp. I -2 3 2
§ i. The Arician Grove, pp. 1-6. — The Lake of Nemi, p. 1 ; sacred grove of
Diana, p. I sq. ; Aricia, p. 2 ; the priest of the grove, p. 2 sq. ; the
legend, p. 4 ; the worship, p. 4 sq. ; Egeria, p. 5 ; Virbius, p. 6.
§ 2. Magic and Religion, pp. 7-128. — Kings as priests, p. 7 sq. ; divinity of
kings, p. 8 sq. ; sympathetic magic, its two principles and sorts, p. 9 sq. ;
imitative magic, pp. 10-49 5 magical images to injure or destroy enemies,
pp. 10-18 ; imitation of childbirth, pp. 19-22 ; imitative magic in medicine,
p. 22 sq., in hunting and fishing, pp. 23-30, in war, pp. 30-35, in hus-
bandry, pp. 35-39 ; magical trees, p. 39 sq. ; magic of the dead, p. 40 sq. ;
magical animals, pp. 41-43 ; magic of inanimate things, especially stones,
pp. 43-45 ; magic of the tides, pp. 45-47 ; magical garments, p. 47 sq. ;
geomancy, p. 48 sq. ; sympathetic magic in strict sense, pp. 49-60 ; teeth
in sympathetic magic, pp. 50-53 ; navel-string, afterbirth, and placenta in
sympathetic magic, pp. 53-56 ; sympathetic relation between wounded
man and agent of wound, pp. 56-58, and between man and his clothes,
' p. 59 sq. ; magic and science, p. 61 sq. ; fallacy of magic, p. 62; magic
and religion, pp. 62-74 '■> religion defined, p. 63, its opposition of principle
to magic, p. 63 sq., fused with magic in early society, pp. 64-66, in ancient
religions of India and Egypt, p. 66 sq., and among ignorant classes of
modern Europe, pp. 67-69 ; magic older than religion, pp. 69-75 '> transi-
tion from magic to religion, pp. 75-7S ; why fallacy of magic so long
escaped detection, pp. 78-80 ; two types of man-god, p. 80 sq. ; making
rain, pp. 81-114; making sunshine, pp. 115-117; staying the sun, pp.
117-119 ; making or calming the wind, pp. 119-128.
§ 3. Incarnate Gods, pp. 1 28- 166. — Conception of gods gradually evolved, pp.
128-130; incarnation of gods in human form either temporary or per-
manent, p. 130 sq. ; temporary incarnation or inspiration, pp. 131-137, by
blood-drinking, pp. 133- 1 35 ; inspiration of victim, p. 135 sq. ; sorcerer
xxvi THE GOLDEN BOUGH
tends to grow into god or king, pp. 137-139 ; human gods in the Pacific,
PP- I39_I4I) among the Malays, pp. 141 -144, in Eastern Asia, p. 144
si/., in India, pp. 145-147, in Egypt and Africa, pp. 147-149, among
Christians, pp. 149-151; transmigration of divine spirit into other
human forms, pp. 1 51-153; divine kings control the weather and crops,
pp. 154-157, punished for bad weather and failure of crops, pp. 157-
159 ; position of kings in ancient monarchies, pp. 1 59-161 ; King of the
Wood not a temporal sovereign, p. 161 sq. ; departmental kings of nature,
p. 162 ; kings of rain, p. 163 sq. ; King of Eire and King of Water in
Cambodia, pp. 164-166.
§4. Tree-worship, pp. 166-224. — Ancient forests in Europe, p. 166 sq. ; tree-
worship among different branches of Aryan stock in Europe, pp. 167-169 ;
trees regarded as animate, pp. 169-174; threatening and deceiving the
tree-spirit, pp. 174-176; trees married, p. 176 sq. ; clove-trees and rice
regarded as pregnant, p. 177 sq. ; souls of dead in trees, pp. 178-180;
tree viewed as abode (not body) of tree-spirit, p. 180 sq. ; ceremonies at
felling trees to appease tree-spirit, pp. 181-185 ; sacred trees and groves,
pp. 185-188; trees or tree-spirits give rain and sunshine, p. 188 sq.,
make crops to grow, pp. 189-192, cattle to multiply and women to bring
forth, pp. 192-196; May-trees, May-poles, May garlands, etc. in Europe,
pp. 196-206 ; Esthonian story of tree-spirit in human form, p. 206 sq. ;
tree-spirit represented in folk-custom simultaneously by person (May Lady,
Little May Rose, Walber, Green George, etc.), and by tree, bough, or
flower, pp. 207-212 ; tree-spirit represented by a leaf-clad or flower-decked
person (Whitsuntide Flower, Little Leaf Man, Jack-in-the-Green, etc.)
alone, pp. 212-216, by a king or queen (May King, Leaf King, Grass
King, Queen of May), or by a couple (Lord and Lady, Whitsun-bride and
bridegroom, etc.), pp. 216-222; Brud's bed, p. 223; Whitsuntide Bride
and May Bride, p. 224.
§ 5. Tree-worship in Antiquity, pp. 224-232. — The Daedala, pp. 225-228 ; mar-
riage of Dionysus to the Queen, p. 229 ; Diana at the Arician grove, p.
230 ; the King of the Wood, p. 231 sq.
CHAPTER II
THE PERILS OF THE SOUL, pp. 233-450
Royal and Priestly Taboos, pp. 233-247. — Need of caring for the divine king,
p. 233 sq. ; mode of life of the Mikado, p. 234 sq., of the Chitome, p.
236, of the Zapotec pontiff, p. 236 sq. ; burdensome restraints imposed on
kings, in Africa, p. 238 sq., in ancient Ireland, pp. 239-241, in ancient
Egypt, p. 241, on the Flamen Dialis, p. 241 sq. ; consequent reluctance to
accept sovereignty, p. 243 sq., and split between spiritual and temporal
sovereignty in Japan, Tonquin, Polynesia, and Athens, p. 244 sq. ; fetish
king and civil king in West Africa, p. 245 sq. ; taboo rajah and civil rajah
in Timor, p. 246 sq.
CONTENTS xxvii
§ 2. Nature of the Soul, pp. 247-297. — Soul conceived as a tiny man or animal,
pp. 247-250 ; escapes by the mouth and nostrils, p. 251 sq. ; soul as a
bird, pp. 253-255 ; soul absent from body in sleep, pp. 255-260, and in
waking hours, pp. 260-263 ; extracted from body by ghosts, pp. 263-
265 ; recovery of lost soul from ghosts, pp. 265-268, from nether world,
pp. 268-270 ; soul abducted by demons and gods and recovered from
them, pp. 270-275 ; lost soul brought back in visible shape, pp. 275-277 ;
soul extracted or detained by sorcerers, pp. 277-283 ; soul swallowed by
doctor, p. 283 sq. ; soul in shadow or reflection, pp. 285-295 ; soul in
portrait, pp. 295-297.
§ 3. Royal and Priestly Taboos {continued), pp. 297-450. — Royal taboos intended
to safeguard the life of the king, p. 298 ; dread of strangers and precau-
tions taken to counteract their baleful magic, pp. 298-307 ; kings specially
guarded against the magic of strangers, pp. 307-309 ; precautions at
meals, p. 309 sq. ; king not seen eating and drinking, pp. 310-312 ;
kings veiled and screened, p. 3 1 2 sq. ; kings forbidden to leave the palace
or at least to be seen abroad by their subjects, pp. 313-316 ; magic harm
wrought through refuse of food, pp. 316-318 ; refuse of king's food
buried, p. 318; king's dishes used by no one else, p. 318; ill effects
caused by using king's dishes or clothes, p. 318 ; ceremony in Tonga for
undoing this mischief, p. 319 sq.; touching for king's evil, p. $20 sq. ;
fatal effects of Maori chief's sanctity, p. 321 sq. ; taboos imposed on sacred
kings and chiefs resemble those imposed on mourners, pp. 322-325, on
women at menstruation and after childbirth, pp. 325-327, on lads at
initiation, p. 327, on men at the wars, pp. 327-331, on warriors after their
return, especially on those who have shed blood, pp. 33i-339> on homi-
cides, p. 340 sq., and on those who have partaken of human flesh, pp.
341-343; ideas of holiness and pollution not distinguished by savage, p.
343 ; king not to be touched, especially with iron, p. 344 ; use of iron
tabooed, pp. 344-346 ; primitive dread of innovation, pp. 346-348 ; iron
used to ban spirits, pp. 348-350 ; cutting weapons not brought into house
of priestly king, p. 350 ; use of sharp instruments forbidden after a death,
at feasts of the dead, and at childbirth, pp. 350-352 ; Flamen Dialis not
to touch raw flesh, p. 356 ; blood not eaten, as containing the life, p.
352 sq. ; blood, especially royal blood, not shed on the ground, pp. 354-
358 ; Flamen Dialis not to walk under trellised vine, p. 358 ; wine treated
as blood and intoxication as inspiration, pp. 358-360 ; dread of contact
with blood, especially woman's blood, pp. 360-362 ; sanctity of the head,
especially chiefs' heads, pp. 362-367 ; hair of sacred kings, priests, and
others not shorn, pp. 368-372 ; ceremonies at hair-cutting, pp. 372-375 J
magic use of shorn hair, pp. 375-379 ; cut hair and nails deposited in
safe place, pp. 379-384, preserved against the resurrection, p. 384 sq. ;
loose hair burnt to prevent it from being used by sorcerers, pp. 385-387 ;
hair cut as a purificatory ceremony, pp. 387-389 ; spittle of kings and
others hidden to keep it from sorcerers, pp. 389-391 ; kings forbidden to
eat certain foods, p. 391 sq. ; Flamen Dialis not to have a knot on his
garment, nor wear any but a broken ring, p. 392 ; magic knots impede a
woman's delivery, pp. 392-394, prevent the consummation of marriage, pp.
xxviii THE GOLDEN BOUGH
394-396, and cause or cure sickness, pp. 396-39S ; knots as amulets, pp.
39S-401 ; knots and rings detain the passing soul, p. 401 ; rings forbidden,
p. 401 sq. ; rings as amulets, p. 402 sq. ; the Gordian knot, p. 403 ;
personal name regarded as part of the man, p. 403 sq. ; personal names
concealed, pp. 404-412 ; names of relations, especially of father-in-law
and mother-in-law, not pronounced, pp. 412-419; intermixture of lan-
guages not enough to account for these taboos on names, pp. 4 1 9-42 1 ;
names of the dead not mentioned, pp. 421-427 ; tendency of this custom
to alter language, pp. 427-429, and to prevent tradition, pp. 429-431 ;
names of dead revived after a time, pp. 43i-433> especially after the flesh
of the corpse has decayed, pp. 433-435 ; names of kings, chiefs, and cer-
tain priests not spoken, pp. 435-441 ; miraculous power of names of gods
and spirits, p. 441 sq.; different names for use in summer and winter, p.
442 sq. ; true names of gods kept secret, pp. 443-447 ; general conclu-
sion— taboos imposed on sacred kings and priests merely an enforce-
ment of what the savage regards as prudential maxims, p. 447 sq. ; fatal
flaw in these maxims, p. 448 ; our debt to the savage, pp. 448-450.
NOTE A
Taboos on Common Words .... 451-464
Addenda ... ... 465-467
CORRIGENDUM
Page 134, line 24, for " Afoors:' read " Alfoors.
CHAPTER I
THE KING OF THE WOOD
"The still glassy lake that sleeps
Beneath Aricia's trees —
Those trees in whose dim shadow
The ghastly priest doth reign,
The priest who slew the slayer,
And shall himself be slain."
Mac aula v.
§ I. The Arician Grove
WHO does not know Turner's picture of the Golden Bough ?
The scene, suffused with the golden glow of imagination in
which the divine mind of Turner steeped and transfigured
even the fairest natural landscape, is a dream-like vision of
the little woodland lake of Nemi, " Diana's Mirror," as it
was called by the ancients. No one who has seen that calm
water, lapped in a green hollow of the Alban Hills, can ever
forget it. The two characteristic Italian villages which
slumber on its banks, and the equally Italian palace whose
terraced gardens descend steeply to the lake, hardly break
the stillness, and even the solitariness, of the scene. Dian
herself might still linger by this lonely shore, still haunt
these woodlands wild.
In antiquity this sylvan landscape was the scene of a
strange and recurring tragedy. On the northern shore of
the lake, right under the precipitous cliffs on which the
modern village of Nemi is perched, stood the sacred grove
VOL. I B
THE ARICIAN GROVE
CHAP.
and sanctuary of Diana Nemorensis, or Diana of the Wood.1
The lake and the grove were sometimes known as the lake
and grove of Aricia.2 But the town of Aricia (the modern
La Riccia) was situated about three miles off, at the foot of
the Alban Mount, and separated by a steep descent from
the lake, which lies in a small crater-like hollow on the
mountain side. In this sacred grove there grew a certain
tree round which at any time of the day, and probably far
into the night, a grim figure might be seen to prowl. In his
hand he carried a drawn sword, and he kept peering warily
about him as if every instant he expected to be set upon by
an enemy.3 He was a priest and a murderer ; and the man
for whom he looked was sooner or later to murder him and
hold the priesthood in his stead. Such was the rule of the
sanctuary. A candidate for the priesthood could only
succeed to office by slaying the priest, and having slain him,
he retained office till he was himself slain by a stronger or a
craftier.
The post which he held by this precarious tenure carried
with it the title of king ; but surely no crowned head ever
lay uneasier, or was visited by more evil dreams, than his.
For year in year out, in summer and winter, in fair weather
and in foul, he had to keep his lonely watch, and whenever
he snatched a troubled slumber it was at the peril of his life.
The least relaxation of his vigilance, the smallest abatement
of his strength of limb or skill offence, put him in jeopardy ;
1 The site was excavated in 18S5
and 1886 by Sir John Savile Lumley,
now Lord Savile, who was then English
ambassador at Rome. For a general
description of the site and excavations
see the Athenaeum, 10th October 18S5.
For details of the discoveries see Bulle-
tin*) deW Institute* di Corrispondenza
Archeologica, 1885, pp. 149 sqq., 225
sqq. ; and especially Illustrated Cata-
logue of Classical Antiquities from the
Site of the Temple of Diana, Nemi, Italy,
by G. H. Wallis (preface dated 1893).
The temple rested on a spacious terrace
or platform, which was supported on
the southern side, towards the lake, by
a mighty wall, 30 feet high and 721
feet long, built in triangular buttresses,
like those which we see in front of the
piers of bridges to break floating ice.
The great antiquity of the sanctuary is
attested by the nature of some of the
objects found on the spot, such as a
sacrificial ladle of bronze bearing the
name of Diana in very ancient Greek
letters, and specimens of the oldest
kind of Italian money, being merely
shapeless bits of bronze which were
valued by Weight.
2 Ovid, Fasti, vi. 756 ; Cato quoted
by Priscian in Peter's Historicorum
RomanorumFragmenta,^. 52; Statius,
Sylv. iii. 1. 56.
3 i;i(p7)pris odp eaTLv del, ire pier kottwv
t<xs eTridecreis, erot/.ios d/xvueadai, is
Strabo's description (v. 3. 12), who
may have seen him "pacing there
alone."
I THE PRIEST OF NEMI 3
gray hairs might seal his death-warrant. To gentle and pious
pilgrims at the shrine the sight of him may well have appeared
to darken the fair landscape, as when a cloud suddenly
blots the sun on a bright day. The dreamy blue of Italian
skies, the dappled shade of summer woods, and the sparkle
of waves in the sun can have accorded but ill with that stern
and sinister figure. Rather we picture to ourselves the scene
as it may have been witnessed by a belated wayfarer on one
of those wild autumn nights when the dead leaves are falling
thick, and the winds seem to sing the dirge of the dying
year. It is a sombre picture, set to melancholy music —
the background of forest showing black and jagged against
a lowering and stormy sky, the sighing of the wind in the
branches, the rustle of the withered leaves under foot, the
lapping of the cold water on the shore, and in the foreground,
pacing to and fro, now in twilight and now in gloom, a dark
figure with a glitter as of steel at the shoulder whenever the
pale moon, riding clear of the cloud-rack, peers down at
him through the matted boughs.
The strange rule of this priesthood has no parallel in
classical antiquity, and cannot be explained from it. To find
an explanation we must go farther afield. No one will
probably deny that such a custom savours of a barbarous
age, and, surviving into imperial times, stands out in striking
isolation from the polished Italian society of the day, like a
primeval rock rising from a smooth-shaven lawn. It is the
very rudeness and barbarity of the custom which allow us a
hope of explaining it. For recent researches into the early
history of man have revealed the essential similarity with
which, under many superficial differences, the human mind
has elaborated its first crude philosophy of life. Accordingly,
if we can show that a barbarous custom, like that of the
priesthood of Nemi, has existed elsewhere ; if we can detect
the motives whidh ied to its institution ; if we can prove that
these motives have operated widely, perhaps universal ly, in
human society, producing in varied circumstances a variety
of institutions specifically different but generically alike ; if
we can show, lastly, that these very motives, with some of
their derivative institutions, were actually at work in c assi al
antiquity then we may fairly infer that at a remoter age the
4 LEGEND OF THE PRIESTHOOD chap.
same motives gave birth to the priesthood of Nemi. Such
an inference, in default of direct evidence as to how the priest-
hood did actually arise, can never amount to demonstration.
But it will be more or less probable according to the degree
of completeness with which it fulfils the conditions indicated
above. The object of this book is, by meeting these condi-
tions, to offer a fairly probable explanation of the priesthood
of Nemi.
I begin by setting forth the few facts and legends which
have come down to us on the subject. According to one
story the worship of Diana at Nemi was instituted by Orestes,
who, after killing Thoas, King of the Tauric Chersonese (the
Crimea), fled with his sister to Italy, bringing with him the
image of the Tauric Diana. The bloody ritual which legend
ascribed to that goddess is familiar to classical readers ; it
is said that every stranger who landed on the shore was
sacrificed on her altar. But transported to Italy, the rite
assumed a milder form. Within the sanctuary at Nemi grew
a certain tree of which no branch might be broken. Only a
runaway slave was allowed to break off, if he could, one of
its boughs. Success in^the attempt entitled him to fight the
priest in single combat, and if he slew him he reigned in his
stead with the title of King of the Wood {Rex Nemorensis).
Tradition averred that the fateful branch was that Golden
Bough which, at the Sibyl's bidding, Aeneas plucked before
he essayed the perilous journey to the world of the dead.
The flight of the slave represented, it was said, the flight of
Orestes ; his combat with the priest was a reminiscence of
the human sacrifices once offered to the Tauric Diana. This
rule of succession by the sword was observed down to
imperial times ; for amongst his other freaks Caligula, think-
ing that the priest of Nemi had held office too long, hired
a more stalwart ruffian to slay him ; and a Greek traveller,
who visited Italy in the age of the Antonines, remarks that
down to his time the priesthood was still the prize of victory
in a single combat.1
Of the worship of Diana at Nemi two leading features
1 Virgil, A en. vi. 136 sqq. ; Servius, gula, 35. For the title "King of the
ad I. ; Strabo, v. 3. 12 ; Pausanias, ii. Wood" see Suetonius, I.e.; and com-
27. 4; Solinus, ii. 11 ; Suetonius, Call- pare Statius, Sylv. iii. 1. 55 sq. —
i DIANA AT NEMI 5
can still be made out. First, from the votive offerings found
in modern times on the site, it appears that she was especially
worshipped by women desirous of children or of an easy
delivery.1 Second, fire seems to have played a foremost part
in her ritual. For during her annual festival, celebrated at
the hottest time of the year, her grove shone with a multitude
of torches, whose ruddy glare was reflected by the waters of
the lake ; and throughout the length and breadth of Italy
the day was kept with holy rites at every domestic hearth.2
Moreover, women whose prayers had been heard by the
goddess brought lighted torches to the grove in fulfilment of
their vows.3 Lastly, the title of Vesta borne by the Arician
Diana4 points almost certainly to the maintenance of a
perpetual holy fire in her sanctuary.
At her annual festival all young people went through a
purificatory ceremony in her honour ; dogs were crowned ;
and the feast consisted of a young kid, wine, and cakes, served
up piping hot on platters of leaves.0
But Diana did not reign alone in her grove at Nemi.
Two lesser divinities shared her forest sanctuary. One was
Egeria, the nymph of the clear water which, bubbling from
the basaltic rocks, used to fall in graceful cascades into the
lake at the place called Le Mole.6 According to one story
" Jamque dies aderat, profngis cum 2 Statius, Sylv. iii. 1. 52 sqq. From
regibus aptum Martial, xii. 67, it has been inferred
Fumat Aricinum Triviae nemus ;" that the Arician festival fell on the 13th
Ovid, Fasti, iii. 271: "Regna taunt of AuSust The inference> however,
fortesque manu, pedibusque fugaces ;" does not seem conclusive- Statius s
id., Ars am. i. 259 sq.— expression is :—
" Ecce suburbanae templum nemorah " Tempus erat, caeli cum ardentissimus
Dianae, axis
Partaque per gladios regna nocente Incumbit ten-is, ictusque Hyperione
manu." multo
. , , , ,. , . , Acer anhelantes incendit Sirius
A marble bas-relief, representing the r „
combat between a priest and a candi-
date for the office, was found at the 3 Ovid, Fasti, iii. 269 ; Propertius,
foot of the hill of Aricia [Illustrated iii. 24 (30). 9 sq. ed. Paley.
Catalogue of Classical Antiquities from 4 Inscript. lat. ed. Orelli, No. 1455.
the Site of the Temple of Diana, Nemi, 5 Statius, I.e. ; Gratius Faliscus, 483
Italy, p. II). sqq.
1 Bulletino delP Instituto, 1885, p. 6 Athenaeum, 10th October 1885.
153 sq. ; Athenaeutn, 10th October The water was diverted some years
1885 ; Preller, Romischc Mythologie,z'\. ago to supply Albano. For Egeria,
317. Of these votive offerings some compare Strabo, v. 3. 12 ; Ovid,
represent women with children in their Fasti, iii. 273 sqq. : id., Met. xv. 487
arms ; one represents a delivery, etc. sqq.
6 VIRBIUS chap.
the grove was first consecrated to Diana by a Manius
Egerius, who was the ancestor of a long and distinguished
line. Hence the proverb " There are many Manii at Ariciae."
Others explained the proverb very differently. They said
it meant that there were a great many ugly and deformed
people, and they referred to the word Mania, which meant a
bogey or bugbear to frighten children.1
The other of these minor deities was Virbius. Legend
had it that Virbius was the youthful Greek hero Hippolytus,
who had been killed by his horses on the sea-shore of the
Saronic Gulf. Him, to please Diana, the leech Aesculapius
brought to life again by his simples. But Jupiter, indignant
that a mortal man should return from the gates of death,
thrust down the meddling leech himself to Hades ; and
Diana, for the love she bore Hippolytus, carried him away
to Italy and hid him from the angry god in the dells of
Nemi, where he reigned a forest king under the name of
Virbius. Horses were excluded from the grove and
sanctuary, because horses had killed Hippolytus.2 Some
thought that Virbius was the sun. It was unlawful to touch
his image.3 His worship was cared for by a special priest,
the Flamen Virbialis.4
Such, then, are the facts and theories bequeathed to us
by antiquity on the subject of the priesthood of Nemi. From
materials so slight and scanty it is impossible to extract a
solution of the problem. It remains to try whether the
survey of a wider field may not yield us the clue we seek.
The questions to be answered are two : first, why had the
priest to slay his predecessor ? and second, why, before he
slew him, had he to pluck the Golden Bough ? The rest of
this book will be an attempt to answer these questions.
1 Festus, p. 145, ed. Miiller ; Schol. Aesculapius was said to have brought
on Persius, vi. 56, quoted by Jahn on the dead Hippolytus to life. For the
Macrobius, Saturn, i. 7. 35. evidence on this subject I may refer the
2 Virgil, Aen. vii. 761 sqq. ; Ser- reader to my note on Pausanias, ii.
vius, ad I. ; Ovid, Fasti, iii. 265 sq. ; 10. 3.
id., Met. xv. 497 sqq. ; Pausanias, ii. 3 Servius on Virgil, Aen. vii. 776.
27. 4 ; Apollodorus, iii. 10. 3 ; Schol. 4 Inscript. Lat. ed. Orelli, Nos.
on Pindar, Pyth. iii. 96. It was per- 2212,4022. The inscription No. 1457
haps in his character of a serpent that (Orelli) is said to be spurious.
PRIESTLY KINGS
§ 2. Magic and Religion
The first point on which we fasten is the priest's title.
Why was he called the King of the Wood ? why was his
office spoken of as a Kingdom ? l
The union of a royal title with priestly duties was
common in ancient Italy and Greece. At Rome and in
other Italian cities there was a priest called the Sacrificial
King or King of the Sacred Rites, and his wife bore the title
of Queen of the Sacred Rites.2 In republican Athens the
second magistrate of the state was called the King, and his
wife the Queen ; the functions of both were religious.3 Many
other Greek democracies had titular kings, whose duties, so
far as they are known, seem to have been priestly.4 At
Rome the tradition was that the Sacrificial King had been
appointed after the expulsion of the kings in order to offer
the sacrifices which had been previously offered by the kings.5
In Greece a similar view appears to have prevailed as to
the origin of the priestly kings.0 In itself the view is not
improbable, and it is borne out by the example of Sparta,
almost the only purely Greek state which retained the kingly
form of government in historical times. For in Sparta all
state sacrifices were offered by the kings as descendants of
the god." This combination of priestly functions with royal
authority is familiar to every one. Asia Minor, for example,
was the seat of various great religious capitals peopled by
thousands of "sacred slaves," and ruled by pontiffs who
wielded at once temporal and spiritual authority, like the
1 See above, p. 4, note 1.
2 Marquardt, Romische Staatsver-
-vahicng, iii.2 321 sqq.
3 Aristotle, Constitution of Athens,
57; Plato, Politicns, p. 290 sq.'', G. Gil-
bert, Handbuch der gi-iechischen Staats-
alterthiimer, i. 241 sq.
4 Aristotle, Pol. iii. 14, p. 1285 ;
Gilbert, op. cit. ii. 323 sq.
5 Livy, ii. 2. 1 ; Dionysius Halic.
Antiq. Rom. iv. 74. 4.
0 Demosthenes, contra Neaer. % 74,
p. 1370; Plutarch, Quaest. Rom.
63-
" Xenophon, Repnb. Lac. 15, cp.
id., 13 ; Aristotle, Pol. iii. 14. 3. Ar-
gos was governed, at least nominally, by
a king as late as the time of the great
Persian war (Herodotus vii. 149) ;
and at Orchomenus, in the secluded
highlands of Northern Arcadia, the
kingly form of government persisted till
towards the end of the fifth century
B.C. (Plutarch, Parallela, 32). As to
the kings of Thessaly in the sixth and
fifth centuries B.C., see F. Miller von
Gaertringen in Aus der Anomia (Berlin,
1S90), pp. 1 - 1 6.
8 PRIESTLY KINGS chap.
popes of mediaeval Rome. Such priest-ridden cities were
Zela and Pessinus.1 Teutonic kings, again, in the old
heathen days seem to have stood in the position, and to
have exercised the powers, of high priests."' The Emperors of
China offer public sacrifices, the details of which are regulated
by the ritual books.3 The King of Madagascar was high-
priest of the realm. At the great festival of the new year,
when a bullock was sacrificed for the good of the kingdom,
the king stood over the sacrifice to offer prayer and thanks-
giving, while his attendants slaughtered the animal.4 In
the monarchical states which still maintain their independ-
ence among the Gallas of Eastern Africa, the king sacrifices
on the mountain tops and regulates the immolation of human
victims ; 5 and the dim light of tradition reveals a similar
union of temporal and spiritual power, of royal and priestly
duties, in the kings of that delightful region of Central
America whose ancient capital, now buried under the rank
growth of the tropical forest, is marked by the stately and
mysterious ruins of Palenque.0 But it is needless to
multiply examples of what is the rule rather than the
exception in the early history of the kingship.
But when we have said that the ancient kings were
commonly priests also, we are far from having exhausted
the religious aspect of their office. In those days the
divinity that hedges a king was no empty form of speech,
but the expression of a sober belief. Kings were revered,
in many cases not merely as priests, that is, as intercessors
between man and god, but as themselves gods, able to
bestow upon their subjects and worshippers those blessings
which are commonly supposed to be beyond the reach of
man, and are sought, if at all, only by prayer and sacrifice
offered to superhuman and invisible beings. Thus kings
1 Strabo, xii. 3. 37, 5. 3 ; cp. xi. 4. 5 Ph. Paulitschke, Ethnographic
7, xii. 2. 3, 2. 6, 3. 31 si/., 3. 34, 8. Nordost-Afrikas: die geistige Cultur
9, 8. 14. But see Encyclopaedia Bri- der Dandkil, Galla and Somdl (Berlin,
tannica, 9th ed. art. "Priest," xix. 729. 1896), p. 129.
2 Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsaltcr- 6 Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire
thutner, p. 243. des nations civilisees die Mexique et de
3 See the Li-Ki (Legge's transla- P Anu'riqne-Centrale, i. 94. As to the
tion), passim. ruins of Palenque, see H. H. Bancroft,
4 W. Ellis, History of Madagascar, Native Races of the Pacific States, iv.
i. 359 sq. 288 sqq.
i S YMPA THE TIC MA GIC 9
are often expected to give rain and sunshine in due season,
to make the crops grow, and so on. Strange as this ex-
pectation appears to us, it is quite of a piece with early
modes of thought. A savage hardly conceives the distinction
commonly drawn by more advanced peoples between the
natural and the supernatural. To him the world is to a
great extent worked by supernatural agents, that is, by
personal beings acting on impulses and motives like his own,
liable like him to be moved by appeals to their pity, their
hopes, and their fears. In a world so conceived he sees no
limit to his power of influencing the course of nature to his
own advantage. Prayers, promises, or threats may secure
him fine weather and an abundant crop from the gods ; and
if a god should happen, as he sometimes believes, to become
incarnate in his own person, then he need appeal to no
higher being ; he, the savage, possesses in himself all the
powers necessary to further his own well-being and that of
his fellow-men.
This is one way in which the idea of a man-god is
Ireached. But there is another. Side by side with the view
I of the world as pervaded by spiritual forces, primitive man
has another conception in which we may detect a germ of
the modern notion of natural law or the view of nature as
a series of events occurring in an invariable order without the
intervention of personal agency. The germ of which I speak
is involved in that sympathetic magic, as it may be called,
which plays a large part in most systems of superstition.
Manifold as are the applications of this crude philosophy
— for a philosophy it is as well as an art — the fundamental
principles on which it is based would seem to be reducible
to two ; first, that like produces like, or that an effect
resembles its cause ; and second, that things which have once
been in contact, but have ceased to be so, continue to act on
each other as if the contact still persisted. From the first
of these principles the savage infers that he can produce any
desired effect merely by imitating it ; from the second he
concludes that he can influence at pleasure and at any
distance any person of whom, or any thing of which, he
possesses a particle. Magic of the latter sort, resting as it
does on the belief in a certain secret sympathy which unites
io IMITATIVE MAGIC chap.
indissolubly things that have once been connected with each
other, may appropriately be termed sympathetic in the strict
sense of the term. Magic of the former kind, in which the
supposed cause resembles or simulates the supposed effect,
may conveniently be described as imitative or mimetic.1 But
inasmuch as the efficacy even of imitative magic must be
supposed to depend on a certain physical influence or
sympathy linking the imaginary cause or subject to the
imaginary effect or object, it seems desirable to retain the
name sympathetic magic as a general designation to include
both branches of the art. In practice jthe two are often
conjoined ; or, to speak more exactly, while imitative magic
may be practised by itself, sympathetic magic in the strict
sense will generally be found to involve an application of
the mimetic principle. This will be more readily under-
stood from the examples with which I will now illustrate
both branches of the subject, beginning with the imitative.
Perhaps the most familiar application of the principle'
that like produces like is the attempt which has been made
by many peoples in many ages to injure or destroy an
enemy by injuring or destroying an image of him, in the
belief that, just as the image suffers, so does the man, and'
that when it perishes he must die. A few instances out off
many may be given to prove at once the wide diffusion
of the practice over the world and its remarkable persistence
through the ages. For thousands of years ago it was known
to the sorcerers of ancient India, Babylon, and Egypt as well
as of Greece and Rome,2 and at this day it is still resorted to
by cunning and malignant savages in Australia, Africa, and
Scotland. Thus, for example, when an Ojebway Indian
desires to work evil on any one, Tie makes a little wooden
image of his enemy and runs a needle into its head or heart,
or he shoots an arrow into it, believing that wherever the
needle pierces or the arrow strikes the image, his foe will
the same instant be seized with a sharp pain in the corre-
sponding part of his body ; but if he intends to kill the
1 I have adopted the suggestion of a (vol. ii. p. 268).
writer (Mr. E. S. Hartland?) in Folk- 2 For the Greek and Roman prac-
lore, viii. (1897), p. 65. The expres- tice, see Theocritus, Id, ii. ; Virgil, isV/.
sion "imitative magic" was used inci- viii. 7S"^2 ; Ovid, Hei-oides, vi. 91 sq. ;
dentally in the first edition of this work id., Amoves, iii. 7. 29 sq.
i MAGICAL IMAGES u
person outright, he burns or buries the puppet, uttering
certain magic words as he does so.1
A Malay charm of the same sort is as follows. Take
parings of nails, hair, eyebrows, spittle, and so forth of your
intended victim, enough to represent every part of his
person, and then make them up into his likeness with wax
from a deserted bees' comb. Scorch the figure slowly by
holding it over a lamp every night for seven nights, and say:
" It is not wax that I am scorching,
It is the liver, heart, and spleen of So-and-so that I scorch."
After the seventh time burn the figure, and your victim will
die. Another form of the Malay charm, which resembles
the Ojebway practice still more closely, is to make a corpse
of wax from an empty bees' comb and of the length of a-
footstep : then pierce the eye of the image, and your enemy
is blind ; pierce the stomach, and he is sick ; pierce the
head, and his head aches ; pierce the breast, and his breast
will suffer. If you would kill him outright, transfix the
image from the head downwards ; enshroud it as you would
a corpse ; pray over it as if you were praying over the
dead ; then bury it in the middle of a path where your
victim will be sure to step over it. In order that his blood
may not be on your head, you should say :
"It is not I who am burying him,
It is Gabriel who is burying him."
Thus the guilt of the murder will be laid on the shoulders of
the archangel Gabriel, who is a great deal better able to bear
it than you are.2 In eastern Java an enemy may be killed
by means of a likeness of him drawn on a piece of paper,
which is then incensed or buried in the ground.3
1 Peter Jones, History of the Ojcb- Peru (D. Forbes, " On the Aymara
way Indians, p. 146 ; J. G. Kohl, Indians of Bolivia and Peru," Journal
Kitschi-Gami, ii. 80. Similar prac- of the Ethnological Society of London,
tices are reported among the Illinois, ii. (1870), p. 236).
the Mandans, and the Hidatsas of 2 yy. \y. Skeat, Malay Magic (Lon-
North America (Charlevoix, Hisloire ^on jqqo) pp- 570-572.
de la Arouvelle France, vi. SS ; Maxi-
milian, Prinz zu Wied, Reise in das 3 J. Kreemer, " Regenmaken, Oed-
Innere Nord-America, ii. 188; Wash- joeng, Tooverij onder de Javanen,"
ington Matthews, Ethnography and Mededeelingen van -wege het Ncdcr-
Philology of the Hidatsa Indians, p. landsche Zendelinggenootschap, xxx.
50), and the Aymaras of Bolivia and (1886), p. 1 17 -ty-
12 MAGICAL IMAGES chap.
Among the Minangkabauers of Sumatra a man who
is tormented by the passion of hate or of unrequited love
will call in the help of a wizard in order to cause the object
of his hate or love to suffer from a dangerous ulcer known
as a tinggam. After giving the wizard the necessary instruc-
tions as to the name, bodily form, dwelling, and family of
the person in question, he makes a puppet which is supposed
to resemble his intended victim, and repairs with it to a
wood, where he hangs the image on a tree that stands quite
by itself. Muttering a spell, he then drives an instrument
through the navel of the puppet into the tree, till the sap of
the tree oozes through the hole thus made. The instrument
which inflicts the wound bears the same name {tinggani) as
the ulcer which is to be raised on the body of the victim,
and the oozing sap is believed to be his or her life-spirit.
Soon afterwards the person against whom the charm is
directed begins to suffer from an ulcer, which grows worse
and worse till he dies, unless a friend can procure a piece of
the wood of the tree to which the image is attached.1 The
sorcerers of Mabuiag or Jervis Island, in Torres Straits, kept
an assortment of effigies in stock ready to be operated on at
the requirement of a customer. Some of the figures were of
stone ; these were employed when short work was to be
made of a man or woman. Others were wooden ; these
gave the unhappy victim a little more rope, only, however,
to terminate his prolonged sufferings by a painful death.
The mode of operation in the latter case was to put poison,
by means of a magical implement, into a wooden image, to
which the name of the intended victim had been given.
Next day the person aimed at would feel chilly, then waste
away and die, unless the same wizard who had wrought the
charm would consent to undo it.2 When some of the
aborigines of Victoria desired to destroy an enemy, they
would occasionally retire to a lonely spot, and drawing on
the ground a rude likeness of the victim would sit round it
and devote him to destruction with cabalistic ceremonies.
1 J. L. van der Toorn, " Het ani- 2 A. C. Haddon, "The Ethnography
misme bij den Minangkabauer der of the Western Tribe of Torres Straits,"
Padangsche Bovenlanden," Bijdragen Journal of 'the Anthropological Institute,
tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van xix. (1890), p. 399 sq.
Nederlandseh Indie, xxx. (1890), p. 56.
i MAGICAL IMAGES 13
So dreaded was this incantation that men and women, who
learned that it had been directed against them, have been
known to pine away and die of fright.1 When the wife of a
Central Australian native has eloped from him and he
cannot recover her, the disconsolate husband repairs with
some sympathising friends to a secluded spot, where a man
skilled in magic draws on the ground a rough figure sup-
posed to represent the woman lying on her back. Beside
the figure is laid a piece of green bark, which stands for her
spirit or soul, and at it the men throw miniature spears which
have been made for the purpose and charmed by singing
over them. This barken effigy of the woman's spirit, with
the little spears sticking in it, is then thrown as far as
possible in the direction which she is supposed to have
taken. During the whole of the operation the men chant
in a low voice, the burden of their song being an invitation
to the magic influence to go out and enter her body and dry
up all her fat. Sooner or later — often a good deal later — her
fat does dry up, she dies, and her spirit is seen in the sky in
the form of a shooting star.2
In Burma a rejected lover sometimes resorts to a sorcerer
and engages him to make a small image of the scornful fair
one, containing a piece of her clothes, or of something which
she has been in the habit of wearing. Certain charms or
medicines also enter into the composition of the doll, which
is then hung up or thrown into the water. As a conse-
quence the girl is supposed to go mad.3 In this last ex-
ample, as in the first of the Malay charms noticed above,
imitative magic is combined with sympathetic in the strict
sense of the word, since the likeness of the victim contains
something which has been in contact with her person. A
Matabele who wishes to avenge himself on an enemy makes
a clay figure of him and pierces it with a needle ; next time
the man thus represented happens to engage in a fight he
will be speared, just as his effigy was stabbed.4 The ancient
books of the Hindoos testify to the use of similar enchant-
1 E. M. Curr, The Australian Race, 3 C.J. F. S. Forbes, British Burma,
iii- 547- p. 232.
2 Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen,
The Native Tribes of Central Australia 4 L. Decle, Three Years in Savage
(London; 1899), p. 549 sq. Africa (London, 1898), p. 153.
14 MAGICAL IMAGES chap.
ments among their remote ancestors. To destroy his foe a
man would fashion a figure of him in clay and transfix it with
an arrow which had been barbed with a thorn and winged with
an owl's feathers. Or he would mould the figure of wax and
melt it in a fire. Sometimes effigies of the soldiers, horses,
elephants, and chariots of a hostile army were modelled in
dough, and then pulled in pieces.1 Another way was to
grind up mustard into meal, with which a figure was made
of the person who was to be overcome or destroyed. Then
having muttered certain spells to give efficacy to the rite,
the enchanter chopped up the image, anointed it with melted
butter, curds, or some such thing, and finally burned it in
a sacred pot.2 In the so-called "sanguinary chapter" of
the Calica Puran there occurs the following passage : " On
the autumnal Meha-Navami, or when the month is in the
lunar mansion Scanda, or Bishdcd, let a figure be made,
either of barley-meal or earth, representing the person with
whom the sacrificer is at variance, and the head of the figure
be struck off; after the usual texts have been used, the
following text is to be used in invoking an axe on the
occasion : ' Effuse, effuse blood ; be terrific, be terrific ; seize,
destroy, for the love of Ambica, the head of this enemy.'"3
In modern India the practices described in these old books
are still carried on with mere variations of detail. The
magician compounds the fatal image of earth taken from
sixty-four filthy places, and mixed up with clippings of hair,
parings of nails, bits of leather, and so on. Upon the breast
of the image he writes the name of his enemy ; then he
pierces it through and through with an awl, or maims it in
various ways, hoping thus to maim or kill the object of his
vengeance.4 Among the Mohammedans of Northern India
the proceeding is as follows. A doll is made of earth taken
from a grave or from a place where bodies are cremated,
and some sentences of the Coran are read backwards over
twenty-one small wooden pegs. These pegs the operator
1 A. Hillebrandt, Vedische Opfer Atharva- Veda," American Journal oj
und Zauber (Strasburg, 1897), p. 177. Philology, x. (1889), pp. 165-197.
Compare H. Oldenberg, Die Religion 3 Asiatick Researches, v. 389.
des Veda (Berlin, 1894), p. 508. 4 J. A. Dubois, Mocurs, institutions,
2 H. W. Magoun, "The Asuri- et cMmonies des peiifiles de Plnde (Paiis,
Kalpa ; a Witchcraft Practice of the 1S25), ii. 63.
i MAGICAL IMAGES 15
next strikes into various parts of the body of the image,
which is afterwards shrouded like a corpse, carried to a
graveyard, and buried in the name of the enemy whom it
is intended to injure. The man, it is believed, will die
without fail after the ceremony.1 A slightly different form
of the charm is observed by the Bam-Margi, a very degraded
sect of Hindoos in the North-West Provinces. To kill an
enemy they make an image of flour or earth, and stick
razors into the breast, navel, and throat, while pegs are
thrust into the eyes, hands, and feet. As if this were not
enough, they next construct an image of Bhairava or Durga
holding a three-pronged fork in his hand ; this they place
so close to the effigy of the person to whom mischief is
meant that the fork penetrates its breast.2
Nowhere, perhaps, were the magic arts more carefully
cultivated, nowhere did they enjoy greater esteem or exer-
cise a deeper influence on the national life than in the land
of the Pharaohs. Little wonder, therefore, that the practice
of enchantment by means of images was familiar to the
I wizards of Egypt. A drop of a man's blood, some clippings
of his hair or parings of his nails, a rag of the garment
which he had worn, sufficed to give a sorcerer complete
power over him. These relics of his person the magician
kneaded into a lump of wax, which he moulded into the
likeness and dressed after the fashion of his intended victim,
who was then at the mercy of his tormentor. If the image
was exposed to the fire, the person whom it represented
straightway fell into a burning fever ; if it were stabbed with
a knife, he felt the pain of the wound.3 Thus, for instance,
a certain superintendent of the king's cattle was once
prosecuted in an Egyptian court of law for having made
figures of men and women in wax, thereby causing paralysis
of their limbs and other grievous bodily harm. He had
somehow obtained a book of magic which contained the
spells and directions how to act in reciting them. Armed
with this powerful instrument the rogue had shut himself up
1 W. Crooke, An Introduction to North - Western Provinces and Oudh
the Popular Religion and Folklore of (Calcutta, 1896), i. 137.
Northern India (Allahabad, 1894), 3 G. Maspero, Histoire ancienne des
p. 362. peuples de f Orient classique : les
2 Id., The Tribes and Castes of the origincs (Paris, 1895), p. 213 sq.
i6 MAGICAL IMAGES chap.
in a secret chamber, and there proceeded to cast spells over
the people of his town.1 In ancient Babylonia also it was
a common practice to make an image of clay, pitch, honey,
fat, or other soft material in the likeness of an enemy and to
injure or kill him by burning, burying, or otherwise ill-treating
it. Thus in a hymn to the fire-god Nusku we read :
"Those who have made images of me, reproducing my features,
Who have taken away my breath, torn my hairs,
Who have rent my clothes, have hindered my feet from treading the
dust,
May the fire-god, the strong one, break their charm." 2
But both in Babylon and in Egypt this ancient tool of
superstition, so baneful in the hands of the mischievous and
malignant, was also pressed into the service of religion and
turned to glorious account for the confusion and overthrow
of demons. In a Babylonian incantation we meet with a
long list of evil spirits whose effigies were burnt by the
magician in the hope that as their images melted in the
fire, so the fiends themselves might melt away and dis-
appear.3 Every night when the sun-god Ra sank down
to his home in the glowing west he was assailed by hosts
of demons under the leadership of the arch-fiend Apepi.
All night long he fought them, and sometimes by day the
powers of darkness sent up clouds even into the blue
Egyptian sky to obscure his light and weaken his power.
To aid the sun-god in this daily struggle, a ceremony was
daily performed in his temple at Thebes. A figure of his
foe Apepi, represented as a crocodile with a hideous face or
a serpent with many coils, was made of wax, and on it
the demon's name was written in green ink. Wrapt in a
papyrus case, on which another likeness of Apepi had been
drawn in green ink, the figure was then tied up with black
hair, spat upon, hacked with a stone knife, and cast on the
ground. There the priest trod on it with his left foot again
1 F. Chabas, Le papyrus magi que Aegypten und aegyptisches Leben im
Harris (Chalon-sur-Saone, i860), p. Alterlum, p. 475.
169 sqq.; E. A. Wallis Budge in 2 M. J astrow, TAe Religion of Baoy-
Archaeologia, second series, vol. 11. /on/a w Assyria (Boston, U.S.A.,
(1890), p. 428 sq. ■ id., Egyptian jg g) 268> 286> c are 2?
Magic (London, 1899), p. 73 sqq. The 2?2; ^ 2?8^
case happened in the reign of Rameses
III., about 1200 B.C. Cp. A. Erman, 3 M. Jastrow, op. cit. p. 286 sq.
i MAGICAL IMAGES 17
and again, and then burned it in a lire made of a certain
plant or grass. When Apepi himself had thus been effectu-
ally disposed of, waxen effigies of each of his principal
demons, and of their fathers, mothers, and children, were
made and burnt in the same way. The service, accompanied
by the recitation of certain prescribed spells, was repeated
not merely morning, noon, and night, but whenever a storm
was raging, or heavy rain had set in, or black clouds were
stealing across the sky to hide the sun's bright disc. The
fiends of darkness, clouds, and rain felt the injuries inflicted
on their images as if they had been done to themselves ;
they passed away, at least for a time, and the beneficent
sun-god shone out triumphant once more.1
From the azure sky, the stately fanes, and the solemn
ritual of ancient Egypt we have to travel far in space and
time to the misty mountains and the humble cottages of the
Scottish Highlands of to-day ; but at our journey's end we
shall find our ignorant countrymen seeking to attain the
same end by the same means and, unhappily, with the same
malignity as the Egyptian of old. To kill a person whom
he hates, a modern Highlander will still make a rude clay image
of him, called a corp chre or corp cJireadh (" clay body "), stick
it full of pins, nails, and broken bits of glass, and then place
it in a running stream with its head to the current. As
every pin is thrust into the figure, an incantation is uttered,
and the person represented feels a pain in the corresponding
part of his body. If the intention is to make him die a
lingering death, the operator is careful to stick no pins into
the region of the heart, whereas he thrusts them into that
region deliberately if he desires to rid himself of his enemy
at once. And as the clay puppet crumbles away in the
running water, so the victim's body is believed to waste
away and turn to clay. In Islay the spell spoken over the
corp chre, when it is ready to receive the pins, is as follows :
" From behind you are like a ram with an old fleece." And
as the pins are being thrust in, a long incantation is pro-
nounced, beginning " As you waste away, may she waste
1 E. A. Wallis Budge, "On the about B.C. 305," Archaeologia, second
Hieratic Papyrus of Nesi-Amsu, ascribe series, ii. (1890), pp. 393-601 ; id.,
in the temple of Amen-Ra at Thebes, Egyptian Magic, p. 77 sqq.
VOL. I C
1 8 MAGICAL IMAGES chap.
away ; as this wounds you, may it wound her." Sometimes,
we are told, the effigy is set before a blazing fire on a door
which has been taken off its hinges ; there it is toasted and
turned to make the human victim writhe in agony. The
corp dire is reported to have been employed of late years in
the counties of Inverness, Ross, and Sutherland. A specimen
from Inverness-shire may be seen in the Pitt-Rivers Museum
at Oxford.1 A similar form of witchcraft, known as " bury-
ing the sheaf," seems still to linger in Ireland among the
dwellers in the Bog of Ardee. The person who works the
charm goes first to a chapel and says certain prayers with
his back to the altar ; then he takes a sheaf of wheat, which
he fashions into the likeness of a human body, sticking pins
in the joints of the stems and, according to one account,
shaping a heart of plaited straw. This sheaf he buries in
the devil's name near the house of his enemy, who will, it is
supposed, gradually pine away as the sheath decays, dying
when it finally decomposes. If the enchanter desires his foe
to perish speedily, he buries the sheaf in wet ground, where
it will soon moulder away ; but if on the other hand his
wish is that his victim should linger in pain, he chooses a
dry spot, where decomposition will be slow.2 However, in
Scotland, as in Babylon and Egypt, the destruction of an
image has also been employed for the discomfiture of fiends.
When Shetland fishermen wish to disenchant their boat, they
row it out to sea before sunrise, and as the day is dawning
they burn a waxen figure in the boat, while the skipper
exclaims, " Go hence, Satan." 3
1 See an article by R. M. O. K. (1895), P- 3°2- For evidence of the
entitled " A Horrible Kite in the High- custom in the Isle of Man see J. Train,
lands," in the Weekly Scotsman, Historical and Statistical Account of
Saturday, 24th August 1S89 ; Pro- the Isle of Man, ii. 168 ; in England,
fessor J. Rhys in Folklore, iii. (1892), see Brand, Popular Antiquities, iii.
p. 385; R. C. Maclagan, " Notes on 10 sqq. ; in Germany, see Grimm,
Folklore Objects collected in Argyle- Deutsche A/ylhologie,4 ii. 913 sq. As
shire," Folklore, vi. (1895), pp. 144- to the custom in general, see E. B.
148 ; J. Macdonald, Religion and Myth Tylor, Researches into the Early History
(London, 1893), p. 3 sq. Many of Mankind, 3 p. 1065^.; R. Andree,
older examples of the practice of this " Sympathie-Zauber," Ethnographische
form of enchantment in Scotland are Parallelen und Vergleiche, Neue Folge,
collected by J. G. Dalyell in his, Darker p. 8 sqq.
Superstitions of Scotland (Edinburgh,
1834), p. 328 sqq. 3 Ch. Rogers, Social Life in Scot-
2 Bryan J. Jones, in Folklore, vi. land, iii. 220.
i SIMULATION OF BIRTH 19
If imitative magic, working by means of images, has
commonly been practised for the spiteful purpose of putting
obnoxious people out of the world, it has also, though far
more rarely, been employed with the benevolent intention
of helping others into it. In other words, it has been used
to facilitate childbirth and to procure offspring for barren
women. Among the Battas of Sumatra a barren woman,
who would become a mother, will make a wooden image of
a child and hold it in her lap, believing that this will lead to
the fulfilment of her wish.1 In the Babar Archipelago, when
a woman desires to have a child, she invites a man who is him-
self the father of a large family to pray on her behalf to
Upulero, the spirit of the sun. A doll is made of red cotton,
which the woman clasps in her arms as if she would suckle it.
Then the father of many children takes a fowl and holds it
by the legs to the woman's head, saying, " O Upulero, make
use of the fowl ; let fall, let descend a child, I beseech you,
I entreat you, let a child fall and descend into my hands and
on my lap." Then he asks the woman, " Has the child come?"
and she answers, " Yes, it is sucking already." After that
the man holds the fowl on the husband's head, and mumbles
some form of words. Lastly, the bird is killed and laid,
together with some betel, on the domestic place of sacrifice.
When the ceremony is over, word goes about in the village
that the woman has been brought to bed, and her friends
come and congratulate her.2 Here the pretence that a child
has been born is a purely magical rite designed to secure, by
'means of imitation or mimicry, that a child really shall be
iiborn ; but an attempt is made to add to the efficacy of the
irite by means of prayer and sacrifice. To put it otherwise,
[magic is here blent with and reinforced by religion. In
Saibai, one of the islands in Torres Straits, a similar custom
of purely magical character is observed, without any religious
alloy. Here, when a woman is pregnant, all the other
women assemble. The husband's sister makes an image of a
male child and places it before the pregnant woman ; after-
1 J.B.Neumann, "Het Pane- en Bila- meer uitgebreide artikelen, No. 3, p.
Stroomgebied op het eiland Sumatra," 515.
Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch 2 J. G. F. Riedel, De shiik- en
Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, Tweede kroesharige rassen Utsschen Selebes en
Serie, deel iii. (1886), Afdeeling, Papua (The Hague, 1S86), p. 343.
20 SIMULATION OF BIRTH chap.
wards the image is nursed until the birth of the child in
order to ensure that the baby shall be a boy. To secure
male offspring a woman will also press to her abdomen a
fruit resembling the male organ of generation, which she
then passes to another woman who has borne none but boys.
This, it is clear, is imitative magic in a slightly different
form.1 In the seventh month of a woman's pregnancy
common people in Java observe a ceremony which is plainly
designed to facilitate the real birth by mimicking it.
Husband and wife repair to a well or to the bank of a
neighbouring river. The upper part of the woman's body is
bare, but young banana leaves are fastened under her arms,
a small opening, or rather fold, being left in the leaves in
front. Through this opening or fold in the leaves on his
wife's body the husband lets fall from above a weaver's
shuttle. An old woman receives the shuttle as it falls, takes
it up in her arms and dandles it as if it were a baby, saying,
" Oh, what a dear little child ! Oh, what a beautiful little
child ! " Then the husband lets an egg slip through the
fold, and when it lies on the ground as an emblem of the
afterbirth, he takes his sword and cuts through the banana
leaf at the place of the fold, obviously as if he were severing
the navel-string.2 Persons of high rank in Java observe
the ceremony after a fashion in which the real meaning of
the rite is somewhat obscured. The pregnant woman is
clothed in a long robe, which her husband, kneeling before
her, severs with a stroke of his sword from bottom to top.
Then he throws his sword on the ground and runs away as
fast as he can.3 Among some of the Dyaks of Borneo,
when a woman is in hard labour, a wizard is called in, who
essays to facilitate the delivery in a rational manner by
1 Dr. MacFarlane, quoted by A. C. Taal-Land-en Volkenkunde van Neder-
Haddon, in Journal of the Anthropo- landsch Indie, xli. (1892), p. 578.
logical Institute, xix. (1890), p. 389 A slightly different account of the
S(l- ceremony is given by J. Kreemer
2 C. Poensen, "lets over de kleed- (" Hoede Javaanzijneziekenverzorgt,"
ing der Javanen," Mededeelingen van Mededeelingen van wege het Neder-
wege het Nederlandsche Zendeling- landsche Zendelinggenootschap, xxxvi.
genootschap, xx. (1876), p. 274 sq. ; (1S92), p. 116).
C. M. Pleyte, " Plechtigheden en 3 S. A. Buddingh, " Gebruiken bij
gebruiken uit den cyclus van het Javaansche Grooten," Tijdschrift voor
familienleven der volken van den Neerlands Indie, 1840, deel ii. pp.
Indischen Archipel," Bijdj-agen tot de 239-243.
SIMULATION OF BIRTH
21
manipulating the body of the sufferer. Meantime another
wizard outside the room exerts himself to attain the same
end by means which we should regard as wholly irra-
tional. He, in fact, pretends to be the expectant mother ;
a large stone attached to his stomach by a cloth wrapt round
his body represents the child in the womb, and, following
the directions shouted to him by his colleague on the real
scene of operations, he moves this make-believe baby about
on his body in exact imitation of the movements of the real
baby till the infant is born.1
The same principle of make-believe, so dear to children,
has led other peoples to employ a simulation of birth as
a form of adoption, and even as a mode of restoring a
supposed dead person to life. If you pretend to give birth
to a boy, or even to a great bearded man who has not a
drop of your blood in his veins, then, in the eyes of primi-
tive law and philosophy, that boy or man is really your
son to all intents and purposes. Thus Diodorus tells us
that when Zeus persuaded his jealous wife Hera to adopt
Hercules, the goddess got into bed, and clasping the burly
hero to her bosom, pushed him through her robes and let
him fall to the ground in imitation of a real birth ; and
the historian adds that in his own day the same mode of
adopting children was practised by the barbarians.2 At the
present time it is said to be still in use in Bulgaria and
among the Bosnian Turks. A woman will take a boy whom
she intends to adopt and push or pull him through her
clothes ; ever afterwards he is regarded as her very son,
and inherits the whole property of his adoptive parents.3
Among the Berawans of Sarawak, when a woman desires to
adopt a grown-up man or woman, a great many people
assemble and have a feast. The adopting mother, seated in
1 F. W. Leggat, quoted by H.
Ling Roth, The Natives of Sarawak
and British North Borneo (London,
1896), i. 98 sq.
2 Diodorus Siculus, iv. 39.
3 Stanislaus Ciszewski, Kiinstliche
Verwandtschaft bei den Siidslaven
(Leipsic, 1897), p. 103 sqq. In the
Middle Ages a similar form of adoption
appears to have prevailed, with the
curious variation that the adopting
parent who simulated the act of birth
was the father, not the mother. See
Grimm, Deutsche Bechtsalterthiiiner,
pp. 160, 464 sq. ; J. J. Bachofen, Das
Ahitterrecht, p. 254 sq. F. Liebrecht,
however, quotes a mediaeval case in
which the ceremony was performed by
the adopting mother {Zur Volkskuttde,
P- 432).
22 SIMULATION OF BIRTH chap.
public on a raised and covered seat, allows the adopted
person to crawl from behind between her legs. As soon as
he appears in front he is stroked with the sweet-scented
blossoms of the areca palm, and tied to the woman. Then
the adopting mother and the adopted son or daughter, thus
bound together, waddle to the end of the house and back
again in front of all the spectators. The tie established
between the two by this graphic imitation of childbirth is
very strict ; an offence committed against an adopted child
is reckoned more heinous than one committed against a real
child.1 In ancient Greece any man who had been supposed
erroneously to be dead, and for whom in his absence funeral
rites had been performed, was treated as dead to society
till he had gone through the form of being born again. He
was passed through a woman's lap, then washed, dressed in
swaddling-clothes, and put out to nurse. Not until this
ceremony had been punctually performed might he mix freely
with living folk.2 In ancient India, under similar circum-
stances, the supposed dead man had to pass the first night
after his return in a tub filled with a mixture of fat and
water ; there he sat with doubled-up fists and without
uttering a syllable, like a child in the womb, while over him
were performed all the sacraments that were wont to be
celebrated over a pregnant woman. Next morning he got
out of the tub and went through once more all the other
sacraments he had formerly partaken of from his youth up ;
in particular, he married a wife or espoused his old one over
again with due solemnity.3
Another beneficent use of imitative magic is to heal the
sick. For this purpose a Dyak medicine-man will lie down
and pretend to be dead. He is accordingly treated like a
corpse, is bound up in mats, taken out of the house, and
deposited on the ground. After about an hour the other
medicine-men loose the pretended dead man and bring him
to life ; and as he recovers, the sick person is supposed to
1 For this information I have to Todten- und Bestattiinpspebrciuche
S->S'
thank Dr. C. Hose, Resident Magis- (Amsterdam, 1896), p. 89. Among
trate, of the Baram district, Sarawak. the Hindoos of Kumaon the same
- Plutarch, Quaestiones Romanae,b custom is reported to be still observed.
Hesychius, s.v. £evTep6iroTfjios. See Major Reade in Panjab Notes
3 W. Caland, Die altindischen and Queries, ii. p. 74, § 452.
i MAGIC IN MEDICINE 23
recover too.1 A cure for a tumour, based on the principle
of imitative magic, is prescribed by Marcellus of Bordeaux,
court physician to Theodosius the First, in his curious work
on medicine. It is as follows. Take a root of vervain, cut
it across, and hang one end of it round the patient's neck,
and the other in the smoke of the fire. As the vervain
dries up in the smoke, so the tumour will also dry up and
disappear. If the patient should afterwards prove ungrate-
ful to his physician, the man of skill can avenge himself very
easily by throwing the vervain into water ; for as the root
absorbs the moisture once more, the tumour will return.2
The same sapient writer recommends you, if you are troubled
with pimples, to watch for a falling star, and then instantly,
while the star is still shooting from the sky, to wipe the
pimples with a cloth or anything that comes to hand. Just
as the star falls from the sky, so the pimples will fall from
your body ; only you must be very careful not to wipe them
with your bare hand, or the pimples will be transferred
to it.3
Further, imitative magic plays a great part in the mea-
sures taken by the rude hunter or fisherman to secure an
abundant supply of food. On the principle that like pro-
duces like, many things are done by him and his friends in
deliberate imitation of the result which he seeks to attain ;
and, on the other hand, many things are scrupulously
avoided because they bear some more or less fanciful resem-
blance to others which would really be disastrous. The
Indians of British Columbia live largely upon the fish which
abound in their seas and rivers. If the fish do not come
in due season, and the Indians are hungry, a Nootka wizard
will make an image of a swimming fish and put it into the
water in the direction from which the fish generally appear.
This ceremony, accompanied by a prayer to the fish to come,
will cause them to arrive at once.4 Much more elaborate
are the ceremonies performed by the natives of Central
Australia for multiplying the witchetty grubs on which they
1 Archdeacon J. Perham, quoted by 3 Marcellus, op. cit. xxxiv. 100.
H. Ling Roth, The Natives of Sara- 4 Franz Boas, in Sixth Report on the
wak and British North Borneo, i. 280. North- Western Tribes of Canada, p.
2 Marcellus, De Medicamentis, xv. 45 (separate reprint from the Report of
82. the British Association for 1890).
24
MAGIC IN HUNTING
CHAP.
partially subsist. One of these ceremonies consists of a panto-
mime representing the fully-developed insect in the act of
emerging from the chrysalis. A long narrow structure of
branches is set up to imitate the chrysalis case of the grub.
In this structure a number of men, who have the grub for
their totem, sit and sing of the creature in its various stages.
Then they shuffle out of it in a squatting posture, and as
they do so they sing of the insect emerging from the chrysalis.
This is supposed to multiply the numbers of the grubs.1 In
the island of Nias, when a wild pig has fallen into the pit
prepared for it, the animal is taken out and its back is
rubbed with nine fallen leaves, in the belief that this will
make nine more wild pigs fall into the pit, just as the nine
leaves fell from the tree.2 In the East Indian islands of
Saparoea, Haroekoe, and Noessa Laut, when a fisherman is:
about to set a trap for fish in the sea, he looks out for a tree, of
which the fruit has been much pecked at by birds. From
such a tree he cuts a stout branch and makes of it the prin-
cipal post in his fish-trap ; for he believes that just as the tree
lured many birds to its fruit, so the branch cut from that
tree will lure many fish to the trap.3 When a Cambodian
hunter has set his nets and taken nothing, he strips himself
naked, goes some way off, then strolls up to the net as if he
did not see it, lets himself be caught in it, and cries, " Hillo !
what's this ? I'm afraid I'm caught." After that the net is
sure to catch game.4 A pantomime of the same sort has
been acted within living memory in our Scottish Highlands.
The Rev. James Macdonald, now of Reay in Caithness, tells
us that in his boyhood when he was fishing with companions
about Loch Aline and they had had no bites for a long time,
they used to make a pretence of throwing one of their
fellows overboard and hauling him out of the water, as if he
were a fish ; after that the trout or silloch would begin to
1 Spencer and Gillen, The Native
Tribes of Central Australia, p. 176.
2 J. W. Thomas, " De jacht op het
eiland Nias," Tijdschrift voor In disc he
Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, xxvi.
277.
3 Van Schmid, " Aanteekeningen
nopens de zeden, gewoonten en geb-
ruiken, benevens de vooroordeelen en
bijgeloovigheden der bevolking van de
eilanden Saparoea, Haroekoe, Noessa
Laut," Tijdschrift voor Neirlands Indie,
1843, dl. ii. p. 601 sq.
4 E. Aymonier, " Notes sur les
coutumes et croyances superstitieuses
des Cambodgiens," Cochinchine Fran-
caise ; Excursions et Reconnaissances,
No. 16, p. 157.
i MAGIC IN HUNTING 25
nibble, according as the boat was on fresh or salt water.1
Before a Carrier Indian goes out to snare martens, he
sleeps by himself for about ten nights beside the fire with
a little stick pressed down on his neck. This naturally causes
the fall-stick of his trap to drop down on the neck of the
marten.2 When an Aleut had struck a whale with a charmed
spear, he would not throw again, but returned at once to his
home, separated himself from his people in a hut specially
constructed for the purpose, where he stayed for three days
without food or drink, and without seeing or touching a
woman. During this time of seclusion he snorted occasionally
in imitation of the wounded and dying whale, in order to
prevent the whale which he had struck from leaving the
coast. On the fourth day he emerged from his seclusion and
bathed in the sea, shrieking in a hoarse voice and beating
the water with his hands. Then, taking with him a com-
panion, he repaired to that part of the shore where he
expected to find the whale stranded. If the beast was dead,
he cut out the place where the death-wound had been
inflicted. If it was not dead, he returned to his home and
continued washing himself till the whale died.3 On the
principles of imitative magic the hunter who mimics a
dying whale clearly helps the beast to die in good earnest.
Among the Galelareese, who inhabit a district in the northern
part of Halmahera, a large island to the west of New Guinea,
it is a maxim that when you are loading your gun to go
out shooting, you should always put the bullet in your
mouth before you insert it in the gun ; for by so doing you
practically eat the game that is to be hit by the bullet,
which therefore cannot possibly miss the mark.4 A Malay
who has baited a trap for crocodiles, and is awaiting results,
is careful in eating his curry always to begin by swallowing
1 James Macdonald, Religion and industries, and resources of Alaska, p.
Myth (London, 1893), p. 5. 154 sq.
2 A. G. Morice, " Notes, archaeo- 4 M. J. van Baarda, " Fabelen,
logical, industrial, and sociological, on verhalen en overleveringen der Galel-
the Western Denes," Transactions of areezen," Bijdragen tot de Taal- Laud-
the Canadian Institute, iv. (1S92-93), en Volkenhtnde van Nederlandsch
p. ic8 ; id., An pays de POurs Noir : Indie, xlv. (1895), p. 502. As to the
chez les sauvages de la Colombie Britan- district of Galela in Halmahera, see F.
nique (Paris and Lyons, 1897), P- S. A. deClercq, Bijdragen totde Kennis
7i- der Residentie Ternate (Leyden, 1S90),
3 I. Petroff, Report on the population, p. \\2 sq.
26
MAGIC IN HUNTING
CHAP.
three lumps of rice successively ; for this helps the bait to
slide more easily down the crocodile's throat. He is equally
scrupulous not to take any bones out of his curry ; for, if he
did, it seems clear that the sharp-pointed stick on which the
bait is skewered would similarly work itself loose, and the
crocodile would get off with the bait. Hence in these cir-
cumstances it is prudent for the hunter, before he begins his
meal, to get somebody else to take the bones out of his
curry, otherwise he may at any moment have to choose
between swallowing a bone and losing the crocodile.1
This last rule is an instance of the things which the
hunter abstains from doing lest, on the principle that like
produces like, they should spoil his luck. Similarly, to take
a few more instances, it is a rule with the Galelareese that
when you have caught fish and strung them on a line, you
may not cut the line through, or next time you go a-fishing
your fishing-line will be sure to break.'2 In the East Indian
islands of Saparoea, Haroekoe, and Noessa Laut, any one
who comes to the house of a hunter must walk straight in ;
he may not loiter at the door, for were he to do so, the
game would in like manner stop in front of the hunter's
snares and then turn back, instead of being caught in the
trap.3 For a similar reason it is a rule with the Alfoors
of Central Celebes that no one may stand or loiter on the
ladder of a house where there is a pregnant woman ; any
such delay would retard the birth of the child.4 Malays
engaged in the search for camphor eat their food dry
and take care not to pound their salt fine. The reason
is that the camphor occurs in the form of small grains
deposited in the cracks of the trunk of the camphor tree.
Accordingly it seems plain to the Malay that if, while seek-
ing for camphor, he were to eat his salt finely ground, the
camphor would be found also in fine grains ; whereas by
1 W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 300.
2 M. J. van Baarda, in Bijdragen
tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch Indie, xlv. (1895), p.
5°7-
3 Van Schmid, " Aanteekeningen
nopens de zeden, gewoonten en gebrui-
ken, benevens de vooroordeelen en
bijgeloovigheden der bevolking van de
eilanden Saparoea, Haroekoe, Noessa
Laut," Tijdschrift voorNeerlands Indie,
1843, dl. ii. p. 604.
4 A. C. Kruijt, " Een en ander
aangaande het geestelijk en maats-
chappelijk leven van den Poso-Alfoer,"
Mededeelingen van -wege het ATeder-
landsehe Zendelinggenootschap, xl.
(1S96), p. 262 sq.
i MAGIC IN HUNTING 27
eating his salt coarse he ensures that the grains of the cam-
phor will also be large.1 In Laos, a rhinoceros hunter will
not wash himself for fear that as a consequence the wounds
inflicted on the rhinoceros might not be mortal, and that the
animal might disappear in one of the caves full of water in
the mountains.2 Again, a Blackfoot Indian who has set a
trap for eagles, and is watching it, would not eat rosebuds on
any account ; for he argues that if he did so, and an eagle
alighted near the trap, the rosebuds in his own stomach
would make the bird itch, with the result that instead of
swallowing the bait the eagle would merely sit and scratch
himself. Following this line of reasoning the eagle hunter
also refrains from using an awl when he is looking after
his snares ; for surely if he were to scratch with an awl, the
eagles would scratch him. The same disastrous consequence
,vould follow if his wives and children at home used an awl
vhile he is out after eagles, and accordingly they are for-
idden to handle the tool in his absence for fear of putting
im in bodily danger.3 For it is to be observed that the
elief in a mysterious bond of sympathy which knits together
ibsent friends and relations, especially at critical times of
ife, is not a thing of yesterday ; it has been cherished from
time immemorial by the savage, who carries out the principle
to its legitimate consequences by framing for himself and his
friends a code of rules which are to be strictly observed by
them for their mutual safety and welfare in seasons of
danger, anxiety, and distress. In particular, these rules regu-
late the conduct of persons left at home while a party of
their friends is out fishing or hunting or on the war-path.
Though we may not be able in every case to explain the
curious observances thence arising, all of them clearly assume
that people can act by means of sympathetic magic on
friends at a distance, and in many of them the action
takes the form of doing or avoiding things on account of
their supposed resemblance to other things which would
really benefit or injure the absent ones. Examples will
illustrate this.
1 W.W. Skent, Malay Magic, p. 213. 3 G. B. Grinnell, Blackfoot Lodge
2 E. Aymonier, Notes sur le Laos Talcs (London, 1S93), PP- 237>
(Saigon, 1SS5), p. 269. 238.
28 SAVAGE TELEPATHY chap.
In Laos when an elephant -hunter is starting for the
chase, he warns his wife not to cut her hair or oil her body
in his absence ; for if she cut her hair the elephant would
burst the toils, if she oiled herself it would slip through
them.1 When a Dyak village has turned out to hunt wild
pigs in the jungle, the people who stay at home may not
touch oil or water with their hands during the absence of
their friends ; for if they did so, the hunters would all be
" butter- fingered " and the prey would slip through their
hands.'2 In setting out to look for the rare and precious
eagle-wood on the mountains, Tcham peasants enjoin their
wives, whom they leave at home, not to scold or quarrel in
their absence, for such domestic brawls would lead to their
husbands being rent in pieces by bears and tigers.3 A
Hottentot woman whose husband is out hunting must do
one of two things all the time he is away. Either she must
light a fire and keep it burning till he comes back ; or if
she does not choose to do that, she must go to the water
and continue to splash it about on the ground. When
she is tired with throwing the water about, her place may be
taken by her servant, but the exercise must in any case be
kept up without cessation. To cease splashing the water
or to let the fire out would be equally fatal to the husband's
prospect of a successful bag.4 At the other end of the
world the Lapps similarly object to extinguish a brand in
water while any members of the family are out fishing, since
to do so would spoil their luck.5 Among the Koniags of
Alaska a traveller once observed a young woman lying
wrapt in a bearskin in the corner of a hut. On asking
whether she were ill, he learned that her husband was out
whale-fishing, and that until his return she had to lie fasting
in order to ensure a good catch.6 Among the Esquimaux
of Alaska similar notions prevail. The women during the
whaling season remain in comparative idleness, as it is con-
1 E. Aymonier, Notes stir le Laos, 4 Th. Hahn, Tsuni- 1| Goam (London,
p. 25 sj. 1S81), p. 77.
2 Chalmers, quoted by H. Ling 5 Leemius, De Lapponibus Fin-
Roth, The Natives of Sarawak and marchiae (Copenhagen, 1767), p. 500.
British North Borneo, i. 430. c Holmberg, " Ueber die Volker des
3 E. Aymonier, " Les Tchames et russischen Amerika," Acta Societatis
leurs religions," Revue de VHistoire des Scientiarum Fennicae, iv. (1856), p.
Religions, xxiv. (1891), p. 278. 392.
i SAVAGE TELEPATHY 29
sidered not good for them to sew while the men are out in
the boats. If during this period any garments should need
to be repaired, the women must take them far back out of
sieht of the sea and mend them there in little tents in which
just one person can sit. And while the crews are at sea no
work should be done at home which would necessitate
pounding or hewing or any kind of noise ; and in the huts
of men who are away in the boats no work of any kind
whatever should be carried on.1 When Bushmen are out
hunting, any bad shots they may make are set down to such
causes as that the children at home are playing on the men's
beds or the like, and the wives who allow such things to
happen are blamed for their husbands' indifferent marksman-
ship.2 Elephant-hunters in East Africa believe that, if their
wives prove unfaithful in their absence, this gives the elephant
power over his pursuer, who will accordingly be killed or
severely wounded. Hence if a hunter hears of his wife's
misconduct, he abandons the chase and returns home.3
An Aleutian hunter of sea-otters thinks that he cannot kill
a single animal if during his absence from home his wife
should be unfaithful or his sister unchaste.4 Many of the
indigenous tribes of Sarawak are firmly persuaded that were
the wives to commit adultery while their husbands are
searching for camphor in the jungle, the camphor obtained
by the men would evaporate.0 While men of the Toaripi
or Motumotu tribe of Eastern New Guinea are away
hunting, fishing, fighting, or on any long journey, the
people who remain at home must observe strict chastity,
and may not let the fire go out. Those of them who
stay in the men's club-houses must further abstain from
eating certain foods and from touching anything that belongs
to others. A breach of these rules might, it is believed,
entail the failure of the expedition.6 Among some of the
1 Arctic Papers for the Expedition of * I. Petroff, Report on the popula-
1875 (published by the Royal Geo- tion, industries, and resources of
graphical Society), p. 261 sq. ; Report Alaska, p. 155.
of the International Polar Expedition 5 For ^ informatlon T am indebted
to Font Barrow, Alaska (Washington, tQ D,. c HosC) Resident Magistrate
■-> ,,'r t, r t,i , , r, ■ r . of the Baram district, Sarawak.
- W. H. I. Bleek, A Brief Account
of Bushman Folklore, p. 19. 6 J. Chalmers, " Toaripi," Journal
3 P. Reichard, Deutsch - Oslafrika of the Anthropological Institute, xxvii.
(Leipsic, 1892), p. 427. (1898), p. 327.
3o SAVAGE TELEPATHY chap.
tribes of North- Western New Guinea, when the men are gone
on a long journey, as to Ceram or Tidore, the women left at
home sing to the moon. The singing takes place in the
afternoons, beginning two or three days before the new
moon, and lasting for the same time after it. If the silver
sickle of the moon is seen in the sky, they raise a loud cry
of joy. Asked why they do so, they answer, " Now we see
the moon, and so do our husbands, and now we know that
they are well ; if we did not sing, they would be sick or some
other misfortune would befall them." ' In the Kei Islands,
to the south-west of New Guinea, as soon as a vessel that
is about to sail for a distant port has been launched, the part
of the beach on which it lay is covered as speedily as possible
with palm branches, and becomes sacred. No one may
thenceforth cross that spot till the ship comes home. To
cross it sooner would cause the vessel to perish.2
Where beliefs like these prevail as to the sympathetic con-
nection between friends at a distance, we need not wonder
that above everything else war, with its stern yet stirring
appeal to some of the deepest and ^enderest of human
emotions, should quicken in the anxious relations left behind
a desire to turn the sympathetic bond to the utmost account
for the benefit of the dear ones who may at any moment be
fighting and dying far away. Hence, to secure an end so
natural and laudable, friends at home are apt to resort to
devices which will strike us as pathetic or ludicrous, accord-
ing as we consider their object or the means adopted to
effect it. Thus in some districts of Borneo, when a Dyak is
out head-hunting, his wife or, if he is unmarried, his sister
must wear a sword day and night in order that he may
always be thinking of his weapons j'and she may not sleep
during the day nor go to bed before two in the morning,
lest her husband or brother should thereby be surprised in
his sleep by an enemy.3 In other parts of Borneo, when the
1 J. L. van Hasselt, " Eenige Aan- Beschrijving der Kei-Eilanden," Tijd-
teekeningen aangaande de Bewoners schrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijks-
der N. Westkust van Nieuw Guinea, kundig Genootschap, Tweede Serie, x.
meer bepaaldelijk den Stam der Noe- (1893), p. 831.
foereezen," Tijdschrift voor Indische 3 J. C. E. Tromp, " De Rambai en
Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, xxxii. Sebroeang Dajaks," Tijdschrift voor
(1SS9), p. 263. Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde,
2 C. M. Pleyte, " Ethnographische xxv. 11S.
i SAVAGE TELEPATHY 31
men are away on a warlike expedition, their mats are spread
in their houses just as if they were at home, and the fires
are kept up till late in the. evening and lighted again before
dawn, in order that the men may not be cold. Further, the
roofing of the house is opened before daylight to prevent the
distant husbands, brothers, and sons from sleeping too late,
and so being surprised by the enemy.1 While a Malay of
the Peninsula is away at the wars, his pillows and sleeping-
mat at home must be kept rolled up. If any one else were
to use them, the absent warrior's courage would fail and
disaster would befall him. His wife and children may not
have their hair cut in his absence, nor may he himself have
his hair shorn." In the island of Timor, while war is being
waged, the high priest never quits the temple ; his food is
brought to him or cooked inside ; day and night he must
keep the fire burning, for if he were to let it die out, disaster
would befall the warriors and would continue so long as the
hearth was cold. Moreover, he must drink only hot water
during the time the army is absent ; for every draught of
cold water would damp the spirits of the people, so that they
could not vanquish the enemy.3
An old historian of Madagascar informs us that " while
the men are at the wars, and until their return, the women and
girls cease not day and night to dance, and neither lie down
nor take food in their own houses. And although they are
very voluptuously inclined, they would not for anything in the
world have an intrigue with another man while their husband
is at the war, believing firmly that if that happened, their
husband would be either killed or wounded. They believe
that by dancing they impart strength, courage, and good for-
tune to their husbands ; accordingly during such times they
give themselves no rest, and this custom they observe very
religiously." 4 Similarly a traveller of the seventeenth
century writes that in Madagascar " when the man is in battle
1 H. Ling Roth, "Low's Natives (1884), p. 414.
of Borneo," Journal of the Anthropo- 4 De Flacourt, Histoire de la Grande
logical Institute, xxii. (1893), p. 56. Isle Madagascar (Paris, 1658), p. 97
2 W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, p. sq. A statement of the same sort is
524. made by the Abbe Rochon, Voyage to
3 H. O. Forbes, "On some Tribes Madagascar and the East Indies^
of the Island of Timor," Journal of translated from the French (London,
the Anthropological Institute, xiii. 1792), p. 46 sq.
32 SAVAGE TELEPATHY chap.
or under march, the wife continually dances and sings, and
will not sleep or eat in her own house, nor admit of the
use of any other man, unless she be desirous to be rid of
her own ; for they entertain this opinion among them, that
if they suffer themselves to be overcome in an intestin war
at home, their husbands must suffer for it, being ingaged in
a forreign expedition ; but, on the contrary, if they behave
themselves chastely, and dance lustily, that then their
husbands, by some certain sympathetical operation, will be
able to vanquish all their combatants." 1 We have seen that
among the elephant-hunters of East Africa the infidelity of
the wife at home is believed to have a similarly disastrous
effect on her absent husband. In the Babar Archipelago,
also, when the men are at the wars the women at home are
bound to chastity, and they must fast besides.2 Under
similar circumstances in the islands of Leti, Moa, and Lakor
the women and children are forbidden to remain inside of
the houses and to twine thread or weave.3
When Galelareese men are going away to war, they
are accompanied down to the boats by the women. But
after the leave-taking is over the women, in returning to
their houses, must be careful not to stumble nor fall, and
in the house they may neither be angry nor lift up weapons
against each other ; otherwise the men will fall and be
killed in battle.4 Similarly, we saw that in Laos domestic
brawls at home are supposed to cause the searcher for eagle-
wood to fall a prey to wild beasts on the mountains.
Further, Galelareese women may not lay down the chop-
ping knives in the house while their husbands are at the
wars ; the knives must always be hung up on hooks.5 The
reason for the rule is not given ; we may conjecture that
it is a fear lest, if the chopping knives were laid down by
the women at home, the men would be apt to lay down
their weapons in the battle or at other inopportune moments.
1 John Strays, Voiages and Travels 4 M. J. van Baarda, " Fabelen,
(London, 1684), p. 22. Struys may verhalen en overleveringen der Galel-
have copied from De Flacourt. areezen," Bijdragen totde Taal- Land- en
2 J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch Indie,
kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en xlv. (1895), P- 5°7-
Papua, p. 341.
3 Riedel, op. cit. p. 377. 5 M. J. van Baarda, I.e.
i SAVAGE TELEPATHY $3
In the Kei Islands, when the warriors have departed, the
women return indoors and bring out certain baskets con-
taining fruits and stones. These fruits and stones they
anoint and place on a board, murmuring as they do so, " O
lord sun, moon, let the bullets rebound from our husbands,
brothers, betrothed, and other relations, just as raindrops
rebound from these objects which are smeared with oil." As
soon as the first shot is heard, the baskets are put aside, and
the women, seizing their fans, rush out of the houses. Then,
waving their fans in the direction of the enemy, they run
through the village, while they sing, " O golden fans ! let our
bullets hit, and those of the enemy miss." l In this custom
the ceremony of anointing stones in order that the bullets
may recoil from the men like raindrops from the stones is
a piece of pure sympathetic or imitative magic ; but the
prayer to the sun, that he will be pleased to give effect to
the charm, is a religious and perhaps later addition. The
waving of the fans seems to be a charm to direct the bullets
towards or away from their mark, according as they are dis-
charged from the guns of friends or foes.
Among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast the
wives of men who are away with the army paint themselves
white, and adorn their persons with beads and charms. On
the day when a battle is expected to take place, they run
about armed with guns, or sticks carved to look like guns,
and taking green paw-paws (fruits shaped somewhat like a
melon), they hack them with knives, as if they were chopping
off the heads of the foe.2 The pantomime is no doubt merely
an imitative charm, to enable the men to do to the enemy as
the women do to the paw-paws. In the West African town
of Framin, while the Ashantee war was raging some years ago,
Mr. Fitzgerald Marriott saw a dance performed by women
whose husbands had gone as carriers to the war. They were
painted white and wore nothing but a short petticoat. At
their head was a shrivelled old sorceress in a very short white
petticoat, her black hair arranged in a sort of long projecting
1 C. M. Pleyte, " Ethnographische (1893), P- S05.
Keschrijving der Kei-Eilanden," Tijd-
schriftvan het Ncderlandsch Aardrijks- 2 A. B. Ellis, The TsJii-speakiug
kitndig Genootschap, Tweede Serie, x. Peoples of the Gold Coast, p. 226.
VOL. I D
34 SAVAGE TELEPATHY chap.
horn, and her black face, breasts, arms, and legs profusely
adorned with white circles and crescents. All carried long
white brushes made of buffalo or horse tails, and as they
danced they sang, " Our husbands have gone to Ashantee-
land ; may they sweep their enemies off the face of the
earth ! " 1 When the men of the Yuki tribe of Indians in
California were away fighting, the women at home did not
sleep ; they danced without stopping in a circle, chanting and
waving leafy wands. For they said that if they danced all
the time, their husbands would not grow tired.2 In the
Kafir district of the Hindu Kush, while the men are out
raiding, the women abandon their work in the fields and as-
semble in the villages to dance day and night. The dances
are kept up most of each day and the whole of each night.
Sir George Robertson, who reports the custom, more than
once watched the dancers dancing at midnight and in the
early morning, and could see by the fitful glow of the wood-
fire how haggard and tired they looked, yet how gravely and
earnestly they persisted in what they regarded as a serious
duty.3 The dances of these Kafirs are said to be performed
in honour of certain of the national gods, but when we
consider the custom in connection with the others which
have just been passed in review, we may reasonably surmise
that it is or was originally in its essence a sympathetic
charm intended to keep the absent warriors wakeful, lest
they should be surprised in their sleep by the enemy.
When a band of Carib Indians of the Orinoco had gone on
the war-path, their friends left in the village used to calculate
as nearly as they could the exact moment when the absent
warriors would be advancing to attack the enemy. Then
they took two lads, laid them down on a bench, and inflicted
a most severe scourging on their bare backs. This the
youths submitted to without a murmur, supported in their
sufferings by the firm conviction, in which they had been
bred from childhood, that on the constancy and fortitude
1 H. P. Fitzgerald Marriott, The lend me a copy of this work.
Secret Tribal Societies of IFest Africa, p. 2 S. Powers, Tribes of California
17 (reprinted from Ars qitatuor Corona- (Washington, 1877), p. 129 sq.
torum, the transactions of a Masonic 3 Sir George Scott Robertson, The
lodge of London). The lamented Miss Kafirs of the Hindu Kush (London,
Mary H. Kingsley was so kind as to 1S96), pp. 335, 621-626.
MA GIC AT SO WING
35
with which they bore the cruel ordeal depended the valour
and success of their comrades in the battle.1
Among the many beneficent uses to which a mistaken
ingenuity has applied the principle of imitative magic, is
that of causing trees and plants to bear fruit in due season.
In Thiiringen the man who sows flax carries the seed in a
long bag which reaches from his shoulders to his knees, and
he walks with long strides, so that the bag sways to and fro
on his back. It is believed that this will cause the flax to
wave in the wind." In the interior of Sumatra rice is sown
by women who, in sowing, let their hair hang loose down
their back, in order that the rice may grow luxuriantly and
have long stalks.3 Similarly, in ancient Mexico a festival
was held in honour of the goddess of maize, or " the long-
haired mother," as she was called. It began at the time
" when the plant had attained its full growth, and fibres
shooting forth from the top of the green ear indicated that
the grain was fully formed. During this festival the women
wore their long hair unbound, shaking and tossing it in the
dances which were the chief feature in the ceremonial, in
order that the tassel of the maize might grow in like pro-
fusion, that the grain might be correspondingly large and
flat, and that the people might have abundance." 4 It is a
Malay maxim to plant maize when your stomach is full, and
to see to it that your dibble is thick ; for this will swell the
ear of the maize.5 More elaborate still are the measures
taken by an Esthonian peasant woman to make her cabbages
thrive. On the day when they are sown she bakes great
pancakes, in order that the cabbages may have great broad
leaves ; and she wears a dazzling white hood in the belief
that this will cause the cabbages to have fine white heads.
Moreover, as soon as the cabbages are transplanted, a small
1 Antonio Caulin, Historia Coro- kabauer der Padangsche Bovenlanden,"
graphica natural y evangelica dela Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volken-
Nueva Andalucia de Cumana, Cuayana kunde van Nederlatidsch Indie, xxxix.
y Veriientes del Rio Orinoco (1779), (1890), p. 64.
p. 97- 4 E. J. Payne, History of the New
2 Witzschel, Sagen, Sillen tend Ge- IForld called America, i. (Oxford,
briiuche aus Thiiringen, p. 218, § 36. 1892), p. 421. Compare Brasseur de
3 A. L. van Hasselt, Volksbeschrij- Jiomhouxg, Histoirc des nations civilise'es
ving van Midden - Sumatra ( Leyden , du Mexiqne et de I'A 7ndrique- Centrale, i.
1882), p. 323 ; J. L. van der Toorn, 518 sq.
' ' Het animisme bij den Minang- 5 W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 2 1 7.
36 MAGIC AT SOWING chap.
round stone is wrapt up tightly in a white linen rag and set
at the end of the cabbage bed, because in this way the cabbage
heads will grow very white and firm.1 For much the same
reason a Bavarian sower in sowing wheat will sometimes
wear a golden ring, in order that the corn may have a fine
yellow colour.'2 In the Vosges mountains the sower of hemp
pulls his nether garments up as far as he can, because he
imagines that the hemp he is sowing will attain the precise
height to which he has succeeded in hitching up his breeches ;3
and in the same region another way of ensuring a good crop
of hemp is to dance on the roof of the house on Twelfth Day.4
In Swabia and among the Transylvanian Saxons it is a common
custom for a man who has sown hemp to leap high on the
field, in the belief that this will make the hemp grow tall.5
Similarly in many other parts of Germany and Austria the
peasant imagines that he makes the flax grow tall by dancing
or leaping high, or by jumping backwards from a table ; the
higher the leap the higher will the flax be that year. The
special season for thus promoting the growth of flax is
Shrove Tuesday, but in some places it is Candlemas or
Walpurgis Night (the eve of May Day). The scene of the
performance is the flax field or the farmhouse or the village
tavern.6 In some parts of eastern Prussia the girls dance
1 Boecler-Kreutzwald, Der Ehsten isch Schlesien, ii. 266 ; Von Reins-
abergldubische Gibriiuche, Weisen und berg-Duringsfeld, Fest - /Calender ans
Gewohnheiten, p. 133. Compare F. Bdhmen, p. 49; E. Sommer, Sagen,
J. Wiedemann, Aus dem inneren und Marchen und Gebrduche aus Sachsen
dusseren Leben der Ehsten, p. 447. und Thiiringen, p. 148; O. Knoop,
2 Panzer, Beitragzurdeutschen Myth- Volkssagen, Erzdhlungen, Aberglauben,
ologie, ii. p. 207, § 362 ; Bavaria, Gebrduche und Marchen aus dem
/andes- und Volkskunde des Kdnigreichs bstlichen Hlnterponunern, p. 176;
Bayern, ii. 297, iii. 343. A. Witzschel, Sagen, Sitten und Ge-
3 L. F. Sauve, /e Folk-lore des brduche aus Thiiringen, p. 191, §13;
Hautes- Vosges (Paris, 1889), p. 142. J. F. L. Woeste, Volksiiberliefer-
4 Sauve, op. cit., p. 17 sq. ungen in der Grafschaft Mark, p. 56,
5 E. Meier, Deutsche Sagen, Sitten § 24 ; Bavaria, Landes- und Volks-
und Gebraitche aus Sclnuaben, p. 499 ; kitnde des Kdnigreichs Bayern, ii.
A. Heinrich, Agrarische Sitten und 298, iv. 2. pp. 379, 382 ; A. Heinrich,
Gebrduche tatter den Sachsen Siebett- Agrarische Sitten und Gebrduche unter
biirgens (Hermannstadt, 1880), p. 11. den Sachsen Siebenbiirgens, p. II sq. ;
6 Kuhn und Schwartz, Norddeutsche W. von Schulenberg, Wendische Volks-
Sagen, Marchen und Gebrduche, sagen und Gebrduche aus dem Spreewald,
p. 445, § 354 ; Grohmann, Aber- p. 252 ; J. A. E. Kohler, Volksbrauch,
g/aiiben und Gebrduche aus Bbhmen Aberglauben, Sagen und andre alte
und Mdhren, p. 95, § 664 ; A. Ueberlieferungen im Voigtlande, p. 368
Peter, Volksthiimliches aus dsterreich- sq. ; Die gestriegelte Rockenphilosophie
MAGIC AT SOWING
37
one by one in a large hoop at midnight on Shrove Tuesday.
The hoop is adorned with leaves, flowers, and ribbons, and
attached to it are a small bell and some flax. Strictly
speaking, the hoop should be wrapt in white linen handker-
chiefs, but the place of these is often taken by many-coloured
bits of cloth, wool, and so forth. While dancing within the
hoop each girl has to wave her arms vigorously and cry
" Flax grow ! " or words to that effect. When she has done,
she leaps out of the hoop, or is lifted out of it by her
partner.1 In Anhalt, when the sower had sown the flax, he
leaped up and flung the seed-bag high in the air, saying,
" Grow and turn green ! You have nothing else to do." He
hoped that the flax would grow as high as he flung the
seed-baa- Jn the air. At Ouellendorff, in Anhalt, the first
bushel of seed-corn had to be heaped up high in order that
the corn-stalks should grow tall and bear plenty of grain."
Among the Ilocans of Luzon it is a rule that the man who
sows bananas must have a small child on his shoulder, or
the bananas will bear no fruit.3 Here the young child
on the sower's shoulder clearly represents, and is expected
to promote the growth of, the young bananas.
The notion that a person can influence a plant sympa-
thetically by his act or condition comes out clearly in a
remark made by a Malay woman. Being asked why she
stripped the upper part of her body naked in reaping the
rice, she explained that she did it to make the rice-husks
thinner, as she was tired of pounding thick-husked rice.4
Clearly, she thought that the less clothing she wore the less
(Chemnitz, 1759), p. 103; M. Toeppen,
Aberglauben aus Masuren,^ p. 68 ;
A. Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaber-
glaube? p. 396, § 657 ; U. Jahn, Die
deutsche Opfergebrduche bei Ackerbau
tend Viehzucht,^. 194 sq. According to
one account, in leaping from the table
you should hold in your hand a long
bag containing flax seed (Woeste, I.e.).
The dancing or leaping is often done
specially by girls or women (Kuhn
und Schwartz, Grohmann, Witzschel,
Heinrich, ll.ee). Sometimes the
women dance in the sunlight (Die
gestriegclte Rockenphilosophie, I.e.) ;
but in Voigtland the leap from the
table should be made by the housewife
naked and at midnight on Shrove
Tuesday (Kohler, I.e.). On Wal-
purgis Night the leap is made over an
alder branch stuck at the edge of the
flax field (Sommer, I.e.).
1 E. Lemke, Volksthiimliches in
Ostpreussen, pp. 8-12; M. Toeppen* I.e.
2 O. Hartung, " Zur Volkskunde aus
Anhalt," Zeitsehrift des Vereins fur
Volkskunde, vii. (1897), p. 149 s1-
3 F. Blumentritt, " Sitten und
Brauche der Ilocanen," Globus, xlviii.
No. 12, p. 202.
4 W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 248.
38 FRUIT TREES AND MAGIC chap.
husk there would be on the rice. Among the Minang-
kabauers of Sumatra when a rice barn has been built a feast
is held, of which a woman far advanced in pregnancy must
partake. Her condition will obviously help the rice to be
fruitful and multiply.1 For a similar reason in Syria when
a fruit tree does not bear, the gardener gets a pregnant
woman to fasten a stone to one of its branches ; then the
tree will be sure to bear fruit, but the woman will run a risk
of miscarriage,2 having transferred her fertility, or part of it,
to the tree. The practice of loading with stones a tree which
casts its fruit is mentioned by Maimonides,3 though the
Rabbis apparently did not understand it. The proceeding
was most probably an imitative charm designed to load the
tree with fruit.4 In Swabia they say that if a fruit-tree
does not bear, you should keep it loaded with a heavy
stone all summer, and next year it will be sure to bear.0
The magic virtue of a pregnant woman to communicate/
fertility is known also to Bavarian and Austrian peasants,;
who think that if you give the first fruit of a tree to a woman
with child to eat, the tree will bring forth abundantly next!
year.0 In Bohemia for a similar purpose the first apple of a
1 J. L. van der Toorn, " Het ani- sq. The placing of the stone on the
misme bij den Minangkabauer der tree is described as a punishment, but
Padangsche Bovenlanden," Bijdragen this is probably a misunderstanding.
tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkioide van 6 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskttnde
Nederlandsch Indie, xxxix. (1890), des Konigreichs Bayem, ii. 299 ;
p. 67. Vernaleken, Mythen und Brduche des
2 Eijub Abela, " Beitrage zur Kennt- Volkes in Oesterreich, p. 315. On
niss aberglaubischer Gebrauche in the other hand, in some parts of North-
Syrien," Zeitsclirift des deutschen Palae- west New Guinea a woman with child
stina-Vereins, vii. (1884), p. 112, § may not plant, or the crop would be
202. eaten up by pigs ; and she may not
3 Quoted by D. Chwolsohn, Die climb a tree in the rice-field, or the crop
Ssabier und der Ssabismus, ii. 469. would fail. See J. L. van Hasselt,
4 W. Mannhardt (Baumkultus, p. " Enige Aanteekeningen aangaande de
419) promised in a later investiga- Bewoners der N. Westkust van Nieuw
tion to prove that it was an ancient Guinea," Tijdschrift voor Indische
custom at harvest or in spring to load Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, xxxii.
or pelt trees and plants, as well as the (1889), p. 264. Similarly the Gale-
representatives of the spirit of vegeta- lareese say that a pregnant woman must
tion, with stones, in order thereby to not sweep under a shaddock tree, or
express the weight of fruit which was knock the fruit from the bough, else it
expected. This promise, so far as I will taste sour instead of sweet. See
know, he did not live to fulfil. Com- M. J. van Baarda, " Fabelen, Verhalen
pare, however, his Mythologische For- en Overleveringen der Galelareezen,"
schungen, p. 324. Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volk-
5 E. Meier, Deutsche Sagen, Sitten enkunde van Nederlandsch Indie, xlv.
und Gebrauche aus Schwaben, p. 249 (1895), p. 457.
i FRUIT TREES AND MAGIC 39
young tree is sometimes plucked and eaten by a woman who
has borne many children, for then the tree will be sure to bear
many apples.1 When a tree bears no fruit, the Galelareese
think it is a male ; and their remedy is simple. They put a
woman's petticoat on the tree, which, being thus converted into
a female, will naturally prove prolific.2 Arguing similarly from
what may be called the infectiousness of qualities or acci-
dents, the same people say that you ought not to shoot with
a bow and arrows under a fruit tree, or the tree will cast its
fruit even as the arrows fall to the ground ; 3 and that when
you are eating water-melon you ought not to mix the pips
which you spit out of your mouth with the pips which you
have put aside to serve as seed ; for if you do, though the pips
you spat out may certainly spring up and blossom, yet the
blossoms will keep falling off just as the pips fell from your
mouth, and thus these pips will never bear fruit.4 Precisely
the same train of thought leads the Bavarian peasant to
believe that if he allows the graft of a fruit tree to fall on the
ground, the tree that springs from that graft will let its fruit
fall untimely.5 In Nias the day after a man has made pre-
parations for planting rice he may not use fire, or the crop
would be parched ; he may not spread his mats on the
ground, or the young plants would droop towards the
earth.0
In these cases a person is supposed to influence vegeta-
tion sympathetically. He infects trees or plants with qualities
or accidents, good or bad, resembling and derived from his
own. But on the principle of sympathetic magic the influence
is mutual : the plant can infect the man just as much as the
man can infect the plant. It is a Galelareese belief that if
you eat a fruit which has fallen to the ground, you will yourself
contract a disposition to stumble and fall ; and that if you
partake of something which has been forgotten (such as a
sweet potato left in the pot or a banana in the fire), you will
become forgetful." The Galelareese are also of opinion that if
1 Grohman, Aberglauben und Ge- 5 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkshinde
brauche aus Bohtnen und Mdhren, p. des Kenigreichs Baycrn, ii. 299.
143, § 1053. c E. Modigliani, Un viaggio a Nias
- M. J. van Baarda, op. cit. p. 489. (Milan, 1890), p. 590.
3 M. J. van Baarda, op. cit. p. 488. 7 M. J. van Baarda, op. cit. pp. 466,
4 M. J. van Baarda, op. cit. p. 496 sq. 468.
4o MAGICAL TREES chap.
a woman were to consume two bananas growing from a single
head she would give birth to twins.1 In Vedic times a curious
application of this principle supplied a charm by which a
banished prince might be restored to his kingdom. He had
to eat food cooked on a fire which was fed with wood which
had grown out of the stump of a tree which had been cut down.
The recuperative power manifested by such a tree would in
due course be communicated through the fire to the food,
and so to the prince, who ate the food which was cooked on
the fire which was fed with the wood which grew out of the
tree.2 Among the Lkungen Indians of Vancouver Island
an infallible means of making your hair grow long is to rub
it with fish oil and the pulverised fruit of a particular kind
of poplar (Populus trichocarpa). As the fruit grows a long
way up the tree, it cannot fail to make your hair grow long
too.3 Near Charlotte Waters, in Central Australia, there is
a tree which sprang up to mark the spot where a blind man
died. It is called the Blind Tree by the natives, who think
that if it were cut down all the people of the neighbourhood
would become blind. A man who wishes to deprive his
enemy of sight need only go to the tree by himself and rub
it, muttering his wish and exhorting the magic virtue to go
forth and do its baleful work.4
In this last example the contagious quality, though it
emanates directly from a tree, is derived originally from a
man — namely, the blind man — who was buried at the place
where the tree grew. Similarly, the Central Australians
believe that a certain group of stones at Undiara are the
petrified boils of an old man who long ago plucked them
from his body and left them there ; hence any man who
wishes to infect his enemy with boils will go to these stones
and throw miniature spears at them, taking care that the
points of the spears strike the stones. Then the spears arc
picked up, and thrown one by one in the direction of the
person whom it is intended to injure. The spears carry with
them the magic virtue from the stones, and the result is an
1 M. J. van Baarda, op. cit. p. North-Western Tribes of 'Canada, y. 25
467. (separate reprint from the Report of the
2 H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des British Association for 1890).
Veda, p. 505. 4 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes
3 Fr. Boas, in Sixth Report on the of Central Australia, p. 552.
MAGIC OF THE DEAD 41
eruption of painful boils on the body of the victim. Some-
times a whole group of people can be afflicted in this way by
a skilful magician.1 Again, certain qualities are attributed
to the dead as such, and it is supposed that these qualities
can be communicated by contagion to the living. Thus
among the Galelareese, when a young man goes a-wooing at
night, he takes a little earth from a grave and strews it on
the roof of his sweetheart's house just above the place where
her parents sleep. This, he fancies, will prevent them from
waking while he converses with his beloved, since the earth
from the grave will make them sleep as sound as the dead.2
Similarly, a South Slavonian burglar sometimes begins opera-
tions by throwing a dead man's bone over the house, saying,
" As this bone may waken, so may these people waken " ;
after that not a soul in the house can keep his or her eyes
open.3 Again, Servian and Bulgarian women who chafe at
the restraints of domestic life will take the copper coins from
the eyes of a corpse, wash them in wine or water, and give
the liquid to their husbands to drink. After swallowing it,
the husband will be as blind to his wife's peccadilloes as the
dead man was on whose eyes the coins were laid.4 When a
Blackfoot Indian went out eagle-hunting, he used to take a
skull with him, because he believed that the skull would
make him invisible, like the dead person to whom it had
belonged, and so the eagles would not be able to see and
attack him.5
Again, animals are often conceived to possess qualities or
properties which might be useful to man, and imitative magic
seeks to transfer or communicate these properties to human
beings in various ways. Thus some Bechuanas wear a ferret
as a charm, because, being very tenacious of life, it will make
1 Spencer and Gillen, op. cit. p. 550. is not uncommon. Its observance in
2 M. J. van Baarda, " Fabelen, Ver- England is attested by the experienced
halen en Overleveringen der Galelaree- ^Irs- Gamp: — "When Gamp was
zen," Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en summonsed to his long home, and I
Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch Indie, see him a-lying in Guy's Hospital with
xlv. (1895), p. 462. a penny piece on each eye, and his
3 F. S. Krauss, Volksglaube und reli- *oodfn TleS u!\devr hi% left /™' 1
gioser Branch der Siidslaven, p. 146. ^hoUShtu l *ou d have fainted away.
r But I bore up (Martin Chuzzle'vit,
4 F. S. Krauss, op. cit. p. 140. The ch. xix.).
custom of placing coins on the eyes of 6 g. B. Grinnell, Blackfoot Lodge
a corpse to prevent them from opening Tales, p. 23S.
42 MAGICAL ANIMALS chap.
them difficult to kill.1 Others wear a certain insect, muti-
lated, but living, for a similar purpose.2 Yet other Bechuana
warriors wear the hair of a hornless ox among their own
hair, and the skin of a frog on their mantle, because a
frog is slippery, and the ox, having no horns, is hard to
catch ; so the man who is provided with these charms
believes that he will be as hard to hold as the ox and
the frog.3 Again, it seems plain that a South African
warrior who twists tufts of rats' hair among his own curly
black locks will have just as many chances of avoiding the
enemy's spear as the nimble rat has of avoiding things thrown
at it ; hence in these regions rats' hair is in great demand
when war is expected.4 In Morocco a fowl or a pigeon may
sometimes be seen with a little red bundle tied to its foot ;
the bundle contains a charm, and it is believed that as the
charm is kept in constant motion by the bird, a corresponding
restlessness is kept up in the mind of him or her against
whom the charm is directed.5 One of the ancient books of
India prescribes that when a sacrifice is offered for victory,
the earth out of which the altar is to be made should be
taken from a place where a boar has been wallowing, since
the strength of the boar will be in that earth.6 %When you
are playing the one-stringed lute, and your fingers are stiff,
the thing to do is to catch some long-legged field spiders
and roast them, and then rub your fingers with the ashes ;
that will make your fingers as lithe and nimble as the
spiders' legs — at least so think the Galelareese.7 The
Lkungen Indians of Vancouver's Island believe that the
ashes of wasps rubbed on the faces of warriors going to
battle will render the men as pugnacious as wasps, and
that a decoction of wasps' nests or of flies administered
internally to barren women will make them prolific like
1 J. Campbell, Travels in South p. 132.
Africa, Second Journey, ii. 206 ; 6 A. Leared, Morocco and the Moors
Barnabas Shaw, Memorials of South (London, 1876), p. 272.
Africa, p. 66. G H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des
- Casalis, The Basutos, p. 271 sq. Veda, p. 505.
3 Ibid. p. 272. 7 M. J. van Baarda, " Fabelen,
4 Rev. James Macdonald, "Manners, Verhalen en Overleveringen der Galel-
Customs, Religions, and Superstitions areezen," Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land-
of South African Tribes," Journal of en Volkeukunde van Nederlandsch Indie,
the Anthropological Institute, xx. (1891), xlv. (1895), P- 4^4-
i MAGICAL ANIMALS 43
the insects.1 When a South Slavonian has a mind to
pilfer and steal at market, he has nothing to do but to
burn a blind cat, and then throw a pinch of its ashes
over the person with whom he is higgling ; after that
he can take what he likes from the booth, and the owner
will not be a bit the wiser, having become as blind as the
deceased cat with whose ashes he has been sprinkled. The
thief may even ask boldly, "Did I pay for it?" and the deluded
huckster will reply, " Why, certainly."2 Equally simple and
effectual is the expedient adopted by natives of Central
Australia who desire to cultivate their beards. They prick
the chin all over with a pointed bone, and then stroke it
carefully with a magic stick or stone, which represents a kind
of rat that has very long whiskers. The virtue of these
whiskers naturally passes into the representative stick or
stone, and thence by an easy transition to the chin, which,
consequently, is soon adorned with a rich growth of beard.3
When a party of these same natives has returned from
killing a foe, and they fear to be attacked by the ghost of
the dead man in their sleep, every one of them takes care
to wear the tip of a rabbit-kangaroo in his hair. Why ?
Because the rabbit-kangaroo being a nocturnal animal, does
not sleep of nights ; and therefore a man who wears a tip
of its tail in his hair will clearlv be wakeful during the hours
of darkness.4
On the principle of sympathetic magic, inanimate things,
as well as plants and animals, may diffuse blessing or bane
around them, according to their own intrinsic nature and
the skill of the wizard to tap or dam, as the case may be,
the stream of weal or woe. Thus, for example, the
Galelareese think that when your teeth are being filed you
should keep spitting on a pebble, for this establishes a
sympathetic connection between you and the pebble, by
virtue of which your teeth will henceforth be as hard and
durable as a stone. On the other hand, you ought not to
comb a child before it has teethed, for if you do, its teeth
1 Fr. Boas, in Sixth Report on the religibser Branch der Siidslaven, p.
North-Western Tribes of Canada, p. 147.
25 (separate reprint from Report of the 3 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes
British Association for 1890). of Central Australia, p. 545 sa.
2 F. S. Krauss, Volksglaabe und 4 Ibid. p. 494 sq.
44 MAGICAL THINGS
CHAP.
will afterwards be separated from each other like the teeth
of a comb.1 Nor should children look at a sieve, otherwise
they will suffer from a skin disease, and will have as many
sores on their bodies as there are holes in the sieve.2 Again,
if you are imprudent enough to eat while somebody is sharp-
ening a knife, your throat will be cut that same evening, or
next morning at latest.3 The disastrous influence thus
attributed, under certain circumstances, to a knife in the East
Indies, finds its counterpart in a curious old Greek story. A
certain king had no child, and he asked a wise man how he
could get one. The wise man himself did not know, but
he thought that the birds of the air might, and he undertook
to inquire of them. For you must know that the sage under-
stood the language of birds, having learned it through some
serpents whose life he had saved, and who, out of gratitude, had
cleansed his ears as he slept. So he sacrificed two bulls, and
cut them up, and prayed the fowls to come and feast on the
flesh ; only the vulture he did not invite. When the birds
came, the wise man asked them what the king must do to
get a son ; but none of them knew. At last up came the
vulture, and he knew all about it. He said that once when
the king was a child his royal father was gelding rams in the
field, and laid down the bloody knife beside his little son ;
nay, he threatened the boy with it. The child was afraid
and ran away, and the father stuck the knife in a tree.
Meanwhile, the bark of the tree had grown round the knife
and hidden it. The vulture said that if they found the knife,
scraped the rust off it, and gave the rust, mixed with wine, to the
king to drink for ten days, he would beget a son. They did so,;
and it fell out exactly as the vulture had said.4 In this story;!
a knife which had gelded rams is supposed to have deprived!
a boy of his virility merely by being brought near his person.!
1 M. J. van Baarda, " Fabelen, xi. 292; Schol. on Theocritus, iii. 43.
Verhalen en Overleveringen der Galel- The way in which the king's impotence
areezen," Bijdragen tot de Taal- La?id- was caused by the knife is clearly indi-
en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch Indie, cated by the scholiast on Theocritus :
xlv. (1895), P- 4&3- <rvv4f$7i iweveyKetv avrrjv [scil. ttjv
2 M.J. van Baarda, op. cit. p. 534. fidxaipav] to'ls iiopiois tov iraidSs. In this
.> ,, T t> j , ^o scholium we must correct €KTiu.vov~i
A M. . van Baarda, op. cit. p. 46S. s- s • . > ' ■ ~
' r ^ -t ... oevopov into eKTepLvovTi . . . fijia.
4 The king was Iphiclus ; the wise Eustathius (I.e.) quotes the scholium in
man was Melampus. See Apollodorus, this latter form. The animals were
i. 9. 1 2 ; Eustathius on Homer, Od. rams, according to Apollodorus.
i MAGICAL STONES 45
Through simple proximity it infected him, so to say, with the
same disability which it had already inflicted on the rams ;
and the loss he thus sustained was afterwards repaired by
.administering to him in a potion the rust which, having been
left on the blade by the blood of the animals, might be
supposed to be still imbued with their generative faculty.
The Melanesians believe that certain sacred stones are
endowed with miraculous powers which correspond in their
nature to the shape of the stone. Thus a piece of water-
worn coral on the beach often bears a surprising likeness to
a bread-fruit. Hence a man who finds such a coral will lay
it at the root of one of his bread-fruit trees in the expecta-
tion that it will make the tree bear well. If the result
answers his expectation, he will then, for a proper remunera-
tion, take stones of less marked character from other men
and let them lie near his, in order to imbue them with the
magic virtue which resides in it. Similarly, a stone with
little discs upon it is good to bring in money ; and if a man
found a large stone with a number of small ones under it,
like a sow among her litter, he was sure that to offer money
upon it would bring him pigs. In these and similar cases
- the Melanesians ascribe the marvellous power, not to the
stone itself, but to its indwelling spirit ; and sometimes, as
we have just seen, a man endeavours to propitiate the spirit
by laying down offerings on the stone.1 But the conception
of spirits that must be propitiated lies outside the sphere of
magic, and within that of religion. Where such a concep-
tion is found, as here, in conjunction with purely magical
> ideas and practices, the latter may generally be assumed to
^ be the original stock on which the religious conception has
'been at some later time engrafted. For there are strong
^ grounds for thinking that, in the evolution of thought, magic
has preceded religion. But to this point we shall return
presently.
Dwellers by the sea cannot fail to be impressed by the
sight of its ceaseless ebb and flow, and are apt, on the prin-
ciples of that rude philosophy of sympathy and resemblance
which here engages our attention, to trace a subtle relation,
a secret harmony, between its tides and the life of man, of
1 R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (Oxford, 1S91), pp. 181-185.
46 THE TIDES chap.
animals, and of plants. In the flowing tide they see not
merely a symbol, but a cause of exuberance, of prosperity,
and of life, while in the ebbing tide they discern a real
agent as well as a melancholy emblem of failure, of weak-
ness, and of death. The Breton peasant fancies that clover
sown when the tide is coming in will grow well, but that
if the plant be sown at low water or when the tide is
going out, it will never reach maturity, and that the cows
which feed on it will burst.1 His wife believes that the best
butter is made when the tide has just turned and is beginning
to flow, that milk which foams in the churn will go on
foaming till the hour of high water is past, and that water
drawn from the well or milk extracted from the cow while
the tide is rising will boil up in the pot or saucepan and
overflow into the fire.2 The Galelareese say that if you
wish to make oil, you should do it when the tide is high,
for then you will get plenty of oil.3 According to some
of the ancients, the skins of seals, even after they had
been parted from their bodies, remained in secret sympathy
with the sea, and were observed to ruffle when the tide
was on the ebb.4 Another ancient belief, attributed to
Aristotle, was that no creature can die except at ebb tide.
The belief, if we can trust Pliny, was confirmed by experi-
ence, so far as regards human beings, on the coast of France.0
Philostratus also assures us that at Cadiz dying people never
yielded up the ghost while the water was high.6 A like
fancy still lingers, in some parts of Europe. On the
Cantabrian coast of Spain they think that persons who die
of chronic or acute disease expire at the moment when
the tide begins to recede.7 In Portugal, all along the
coast of Wales, and on some parts of the coast of Brittany,
a belief is said to prevail that people are born when the
tide comes in, and die when it goes out.s Dickens attests
the existence of the same superstition in England. " People
1 P. Sebillot, Le'gendes, croyances et 4 Pliny, Nat. Hist. ix. 42.
superstitions de la mer, i. 136. 5 Ibid. ii. 220.
2 P. Sebillot, op. at. i. 135. 6 Philostratus, Vit. Apollon. v. 2.
3 M. J. van Baarda, " Fabelen, Ver- 7 P. Sebillot, Le'gendes, croyances ct
halen en Overleveringen der Galelaree- superstitions de la mer, i. 132.
zen," Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en 8 P. Sebillot, op. cit. i. 129-132;
Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch Indie, M. E. James in Folklore, ix. (189S),
xlv. (1895), P- 499- P- 189-
i THE TIDES 47
can't die, along the coast," said Mr. Peggotty, " except
when the tide's pretty nigh out. They can't be born,
unless it's pretty nigh in — not properly born till flood."1
The belief that most deaths happen at ebb tide is said to
be held along the east coast of England from Northumber-
land to Kent.2 Shakespeare must have been familiar with
it, for he makes Falstaff die " even just between twelve
and one, e'en at the turning o' the tide." We meet it
again on the Pacific coast of North America among the
Haidas of the Queen Charlotte Islands. Whenever a good
Haida is about to die he sees a canoe manned by some of
his dead friends, who come with the tide to bid him welcome
to the spirit land. " Come with us now," they say, " for the
tide is about to ebb and we must depart." i At the other
extremity of America the same fancy has been noted among
the Indians of Southern Chili. A Chilote Indian in the
last stage of consumption, after preparing to die like a
good Catholic, was heard to ask how the tide was running.
When his sister told him that it was still coming in, he
smiled and said that he had still a little while to live. It
was his firm conviction that with the ebbing tide his soul
would pass to the ocean of eternity.5
To ensure a long life the Chinese have recourse to certain
complicated charms, which concentrate in themselves the
magical essence emanating, on the principle of similarity or
imitation, from times and seasons, from persons and from
things. The vehicles employed to transmit these happy in-
fluences are no other than grave-clothes. These are provided
by many Chinese in their lifetime, and most people have
them cut out and sewn by an unmarried girl or a very young
woman, wisely calculating that, since such a person is likely
to live a great many years to come, a part of her capacity to
live long must surely pass into the clothes, and thus stave off
for many years the time when they shall be put to their
proper use. Further, the garments are made by preference
1 Dickens, David Copperfield, chap. Family among the Haidas," Journal of
xxx. the Anthropological Institute, xxi. (1892),
2 \V. Henderson, Folklore of the p. 17 sq.
Northern Counties of England, p. 58. 5 C. Martin, " Ueber die Eingebor-
3 Henry V. Act ii. Scene 3. enen von Chiloe," Zeitschrift fiir Eth-
i Rev. C. Harrison, "Religion and nologie, ix. (1877), P- '79-
48 LONGEVITY CHARMS chap.
in a year which has an intercalary month ; for to the Chinese
mind it seems plain that grave-clothes made in a year which
is unusually long will possess the capacity of prolonging life
in an unusually high degree. Amongst the clothes there is
one robe in particular on which special pains have' been
lavished to imbue it with this priceless quality. It is a
long silken gown of the deepest blue colour, with the word
" longevity " embroidered all over it in thread of gold. To
present an aged parent with one of these costly and splendid
mantles, known as " longevity garments," is esteemed by the
Chinese an act of filial piety and a delicate mark of attention.
As the garment purports to prolong the life of its owner, he
often wears it, especially on festive occasions, in order to
allow the influence of longevity, created by the many golden
letters with which it is bespangled, to work their full effect
upon his person. On his birthday, above all, he hardly ever
fails to don it, for in China common sense bids a man lay in
a large stock of vital energy on his birthday, to be expended
in the form of health and vigour during the rest of the year.
Attired in the gorgeous pall, and absorbing its blessed influ-
ence at every pore, the happy owner receives complacently
the congratulations of friends and relations, who warmly
express their admiration of these magnificent cerements, and
of the filial piety which prompted the children to bestow so
beautiful and useful a present on the author of their being.1
Another application of the maxim that like produces
like is seen in the Chinese belief that the fortunes of a town
are deeply affected by its shape, and that they must vary
according to the character of the thing which that shape
most nearly resembles. Thus it is related that long ago
the town of Tsuen-cheu-fu, the outlines of which are like
those of a carp, frequently fell a prey to the depredations of
the neighbouring city of Yung-chun, which is shaped like a
fishing-net, until the inhabitants of the former town con-
1 J. J. M. de Groot, The Religions supposed that the pin which is decorated
System of China, i. pp. 60-63. Among with them will absorb some of their
the hairpins provided for a woman's life-giving power and communicate it
burial is almost always one which is to the woman in whose hair it is ulti-
adorned with small silver figures of a mately to be fastened. See De Groot,
stag, a tortoise, a peach, and a crane. op. cit. i. pp. 55-57.
These being emblems of longevity, it is
i 5 YMPA THE TIC MA G1C 49
ceived the plan of erecting two tall pagodas in their midst.
These pagodas, which still tower above the city of Tsuen-
cheu-fu, have ever since exercised the happiest influence
over its destiny by intercepting the imaginary net before it
could descend and entangle in its meshes the imaginary
carp.1 Some thirty years ago the wise men of Shanghai
were much exercised to discover the cause of a local
rebellion. On careful inquiry they ascertained that the
rebellion was due to the shape of a large new temple which
had most unfortunately been built in the shape of a tortoise,
an animal of the very worst character. The difficulty was
serious, the danger was pressing ; for to pull down the
temple would have been impious, and to let it stand as it
was would be to court a succession of similar or worse
disasters. However, the genius of the local professors of
geomancy, rising to the occasion, triumphantly surmounted
the difficulty and obviated the danger. By filling up two
wells, which represented the eyes of the tortoise, they at
once blinded that disreputable animal and rendered him
incapable of doing further mischief.2
Thus far we have been considering that branch of sym-
pathetic magic which may be called mimetic, or imitative.
Its leading principle, as we have seen, is that like produces
like, or, in other words, that an effect resembles its cause.
On the other hand, sympathetic magic in the strict sense of
the word proceeds upon the assumption that things which
have once been conjoined must remain ever afterwards, even
when quite dissevered from each other, in such a sympathetic
relation that whatever is done to the one must similarly
affect the other.3 The most familiar example is the magic
sympathy which is supposed to exist between a man and
any severed portion of his person, as his hair or nails ; so
that whoever gets possession of human hair or nails may
work his will, at any distance, upon the person from whom
they were cut. This superstition is world-wide ; instances
of it in regard to hair and nails will be noticed later on.4
1 J. J. M. de Groot, op. cit. iii. 977. stated and copiously illustrated by Mr.
2 J. J. M. de Groot, op. cit. iii. p. E. S. Hartland in the second volume
1043 sq. of his Legend of Perseus.
3 The principles of sympathetic 4 See chap. ii. § 3, "Royal and
magic, in the strict sense, are lucidly Priestly Taboos."
VOL. I E
5 o 5 YMPA 7 'HE TIC MAGIC c h a r.
Here it may suffice to illustrate the general principle by a
few beliefs and customs concerned with other parts of the
body.
Among the Australian tribes it was a common practice
to knock out one or more of a boy's front teeth at those
ceremonies of initiation to which every male member had to
submit before he could enjoy the rights and privileges of a
full-grown man.1 The reason of the practice is obscure ; all
that concerns us here is the evidence of a belief that a
sympathetic relation continued to exist between the lad and
his teeth after the latter had been extracted from his gums.
Thus among some of the tribes about the river Darling, in
New South Wales, the extracted tooth was placed under the
bark of a tree near a river or water-hole ; if the bark grew over
the tooth or if the tooth fell into the water, all was well ; but if
it were exposed and the ants ran over it, the natives believed
that the boy would suffer from a disease of the mouth.2
Among certain Victorian tribes the tree in which the teeth
had thus been concealed was ever afterwards in some sense
held sacred. It was made known only to certain persons of
the tribe, and the youth himself was never allowed to learn
where his teeth had been deposited. If he died, the foot of
the tree was stripped of its bark, and the tree itself was killed
by kindling a fire about it, " so that it might remain stricken
and sere, as a monument of the deceased." This latter
custom points to a belief that even after being severed from
the body the teeth remained so intimately united with it by
a secret sympathy, that when it perished they too must be
destroyed. Among the Murring and other tribes of New
South Wales the extracted tooth was at first taken care of
by an old man, and then passed from one headman to
another, until it had gone all round the community, when it
came back to the lad's father, and finally to the lad himself.
But however it was thus conveyed from hand to hand, it
might on no account be placed in a bag containing magical
substances, for to do so would, they believed, put the owner
1 As to the diffusion of this custom Anthropological Institute, xiii. (1884),
in Australia see Spencer and Gillen, p. 128.
The Native Tribes of Central Australia,
p. 450 sqq. 3 R. Brough Smyth, The Aborigines
2 F. Bonney, in Journal of the of Victoria, i. 61.
i 5 YMPA THE TIC MA GIC 5 1
of the tooth in great danger.1 Mr. A. W. Howitt once
acted as custodian of the teeth which had been extracted
from some novices at a ceremony of initiation, and the old
men earnestly besought him not to carry them in a bag in
which they knew that he had some quartz crystals. They
declared that if he did so the magic of the crystals would
pass into the teeth, and so injure the boys.2 Nearly a year
after Mr. Howitt's return from the ceremony he was visited
by one of the principal men of the Murring tribe, who had
travelled about three hundred miles from his home to fetch
back the teeth. This man explained that he had been sent
for them because one of the boys had fallen into ill health,
and it was believed that the teeth had received some injury
which had affected him. He was assured that the teeth had
been kept in a box apart from any substances, like quartz
crystals, which could influence them ; and he returned home
bearing the teeth with him carefully wrapt up and concealed.3
Among the Dieri tribe of South Australia the teeth knocked
out at initiation were bound up in emu feathers, and kept
by the boy's father or his next of kin until the mouth had
healed, and even for long afterwards. Then the father, accom-
panied by a few old men, performed a ceremony for the purpose
of taking all the supposed life out of the teeth. He made a
low rumbling noise without uttering any words, blew two or
three times with his mouth, and jerked the teeth through his
hand to some little distance. After that he buried them
about eighteen inches under ground. The jerking movement
was meant to show that he thereby took all the life out of
the teeth. Had he failed to do so, the boy would, in the
opinion of the natives, have been liable to an ulcerated
and wry mouth, impediment in speech, and ultimately
a distorted face.4 This ceremony is interesting as a rare
instance of an attempt to break the sympathetic link between
a man and a severed part of himself by rendering the part
I insensitive.
In many parts of the world it is customary to put
extracted teeth in some place where they will be found by a
1 A. W. Howitt, in Journal of the 2 Ibid. xvi. (1887), p. 55.
Anthropological Institute, xiii. (1884), 3 Ibid. xx. (1891), p. 81.
p. 4565^. 4 Ibid. xx. (1891), p. 80 sq.
52 SYMPATHETIC MAGIC chap.
mouse or a rat, in the hope that, through the sympathy
which continues to subsist between them and their former
owner, his other teeth may acquire the same firmness and
excellence as the teeth of these rodents. Thus in Germany
it is said to be an almost universal maxim among the people
that when you have had a tooth taken out you should insert
it in a mouse's hole. To do so with a child's milk-tooth
which has fallen out will prevent the child from having
toothache. Or you should go behind the stove and throw
your tooth backwards over your head, saying, " Mouse, give
me your iron tooth ; I will give you my bone tooth." After
that your other teeth will remain good. German children
say, " Mouse, mouse, come out and bring me out a new
tooth " ; or " Mouse, I give you a little bone ; give me a
little stone " ; or " Mouse, there is an old tooth for you ; make
me a new one." In Bavaria they say that if this ceremony
be observed the child's second teeth will be as white as the
teeth of mice.1 Amongst the South Slavonians, too, the child
is taught to throw his tooth into a dark corner and say,
" Mouse, mouse, there is a bone tooth ; give me an iron tooth
instead." 2 Far away from Germany, at Raratonga, in the
Pacific, when a child's tooth was extracted, the following
prayer used to be recited : —
" Big rat ! little rat !
Here is my old tooth.
Pray give me a new one."
Then the tooth was thrown on the thatch of the house, because
rats make their nests in the decayed thatch. The reason
assigned for invoking the rats on these occasions was that
rats' teeth were the strongest known to the natives.3 In the
Seranglao and Gorong archipelagoes, between New Guinea
and Celebes, when a child loses his first tooth, he must throw
it on the roof, saying, " Mouse, I give you my tooth ; give me
1 A. Wuttke, Der deutsche Volks- Compare Grohmann, Aberglauben unci
abe?glaztbe,2 p. 330, § 526 ; J. Vonbun, Gebrduche aus Bohmen und Makren,
Volks sagen aus Vorarlberg, p. 67 ; J
W. Wolf, Beitriige zur deutschen Myth
ologie, i. p. 208, §§ 37, 39 ; G
Lammert, Volkstnedizin und medizin
iscker Aberglaitbe in Bayern, p. 128
P-o"i, §§ 824, 825, p. 169, § 1 197.
2 F. S. Krauss, Sitte und Branch der
Siidslaven, p. 546.
3 W. Wyatt Gill, Joltings from the
Pacific, p. ill sq.
SYMPATHETIC MAGIC
53
yours instead." * In Amboyna the custom is the same, and
the form of words is, " Take this tooth, thrown on the roof,
as the mouse's share, and give me a better one instead." 2
In the Kei Islands, to the south-west of New Guinea, when
a child begins to get his second teeth, he is lifted up to the
top of the roof in order that he may there deposit, as an
offering to the rats, the tooth which has fallen out. At the
same time some one cries aloud, " O rats, here you have his
tooth; give him a golden one instead." 3 Among the Ilocans
of Luzon, in the Philippines, when children's teeth are loose,
they are pulled out with a string and put in a place where
rats will be likely to find and drag them away.4 In ancient
Mexico, when a child was getting a new tooth, the father or
mother used to put the old one in a mouse's hole, believing
that if this precaution were not taken the new tooth would
not issue from the gums.5 A different and more barbarous
application of the same principle is the Swabian superstition
that when a child is teething you should bite off the head of
a living mouse, and hang the head round the child's neck by
a string, taking care, however, to make no knot in the string ;
then the child will teethe easily.6 In Bohemia the treatment
prescribed is similar, though there they recommend you to
use a red thread and to string three heads of mice on it
instead of one.7
Other parts which are commonly believed to remain in
a sympathetic union with the body, after the physical con-
nection has been severed, are the navel-string, the afterbirth,
and the placenta. Thus, for example, in Mandeling, a
district on the west coast of Sumatra, the afterbirth is washed
and buried under the house or put in an earthenware pot,
which is carefully shut up and thrown into the river. This
is done to avert the supposed unfavourable influence of the
1 J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik en kroes-
harige rassen tusscken Selebes en Papua,
p. 176.
2 Riedel, op. cit. p. 75.
3 C. M. Pleyte, " Ethnographische
Beschrijving der Kei-Eilanden," Tijd-
schrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijks-
kundig Genootschap, Tweede Serie, x.
(1893), p. 822.
4 F. Blumentritt, " Sitten und
Brauche der Ilocanen," Globus, xlviii.
No. 12, p. 200.
5 Sahagun, Histoire ginirah des
c hoses de la Nouvelle Espagne, p. 316 sq.
6 E. Meier, Deutsche Sagen, Sit ten
und Gebrauche aus Schwaben, p. 510,
§ 415-
' Grohmann, Aberglauben und Ge-
brauche aus Bohmen und Mdhren, p.
in, § S22.
54 SYMPATHETIC MAGIC chap.
afterbirth on the child, who might, for example, get cold
feet or hands through it.1 In Mandeling, too, the midwife
prefers to cut the navel-string with a piece of a flute on
which she has first blown ; for then the child will be sure
to have a fine voice.2 In the Babar Archipelago, between
New Guinea and Celebes, the placenta are mixed with ashes
and put in a small basket, which seven women, each of them
armed with a sword, hang up on a tree of a particular kind
{Citrus hystrix). The women carry swords for the purpose
of frightening the evil spirits ; otherwise these mischievous
beings might get hold of the placenta, and thereby make the
child sick.3 fin the islands of Saparoea, Haroekoe, and
Noessa Laut the midwife buries the afterbirth and strews
flowers over it. Sometimes, however, in these islands
it is solemnly buried in the sea. Being placed in a pot
and closely covered up with a piece of white cotton, it is
taken out to sea in a boat. A hole is knocked in the pot to
allow it to sink in the water. The man who is charged with
the task of heaving the pot and its contents overboard must
keep looking straight ahead ; if he were to glance to the
right or left the child whose afterbirth is in the pot would
be sure to squint. And the man who rows or steers the
boat must make her keep a straight course ; otherwise the
child would grow up a gad-about.4 \ Among some tribes of
Western Australia it is thought that a man swims well or ill,
according as his mother at his birth threw the navel-
string into water or not.5 ^In Rhenish Bavaria the navel-
string is kept for a while wrapt up in a piece of old linen,
and then cut or pricked to pieces according as the child is a boy
1 H. Ris, " De onderafdeeling Klein 4 Van Schmid, <! Aaanteekenninge
Mandailing Oeloe en Pahantan en hare nopens de zeden, gewoonten en
Bevolking met uitzondering van de gebruiken, benevens de vooroordeelen
Oeloes," Bijdragen tot deTaal- Land-en en bijgeloovigheden der bevolking van
Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch Indie, de eilanden Saparoea, Haroekoe,
xlvi. (1896), p. 504. Noessa Laut," Tijdschrift voor Neer-
2 A. L. Ileyting, " Beschrijving der lands Indie, 1843, dl. ii. p. 5235^.
onder-afdeeling Groot- Mandeling en ° G. F. Moore, Descriptive Vocabu-
Batang- Natal," Tijdschrift van het lary of the Language in Common Use
Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genoot- amongst the Aborigines of Western
schap, Tweede Serie, xiv. (1897), p. Australia, p. 9 (published along with«
292. the author's Diary of Ten Years'1 Event-
3 J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik en kroes- fid Life of an Early Settler in Western
harige rassen tnsschen Selebes en Papua, Australia, London, 1884, but paged
p. 354. separately).
i SYMPATHETIC MAGIC 55
or girl, in order that he or she may grow up to be a skilful
workman or a good sempstress.*/ In ancient Mexico they
used to give a boy's navel-string to soldiers, to be buried by
them on a field of battle, in order that the boy might thus
acquire a passion for war. But the navel-string of a girl
was buried beside the domestic hearth, because this was
believed to inspire her wi£h a love of home and a taste for
cooking and baking.2 /Among the Kwakiutl Indians of
British Columbia the afterbirth of girls is buried at high-
water mark, in the belief that this will render them expert
at digging for clam. The afterbirth of boys is sometimes
exposed at places where ravens will eat it, because the boys
will thus acquire the raven's prophetic vision. The same
Indians are persuaded that the navel-string may be the
means of imparting a variety of accomplishments to its original
owner. Thus, if it is fastened to a dancing mask, which is
then worn by a skilful dancer, the child will dance well. If
it is attached to a knife, which is then used by a cunning
carver, the child will carve well. Again, if the parents wish
their son to sing beautifully, they tie his navel-string to the
baton of a singing master. Then the boy calls on the
singing master every morning while the artist is eating his
breakfast. The votary of the Muses thereupon takes his
baton and moves it twice down the right side and twice
down the left side of the boy's body, after which he gives
the lad some of his breakfast. That is an infallible way
of making the boy a beautiful singer.3 These examples
bring out very clearly the bel[ef__thai_J±ie afterbirth -and,
navel-string remain through life, or at least^ for some con-_
siderable time, in sympathetic connection with the child.
and that whatever is done to them produces a corresponding
effect _for good 6T ill on Elm or her. Thus the magic
practised on them is sympathetic in the strict sense, for it
rests on the principle that what is done to a thing affects
simultaneously a person with whom the thing was formerly
in contact. But in several of the instances the magic is
, l Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde 3 Fr. Boas, in Eleventh Report on
des Konigreichs Bayer a, iv. 2, p. 346. the North-Western Tribes of Canada,
- Sahagun, Histoire ghiirale des p. 5 (separate reprint from the Report
choses de la Nouvelle Espagne, p. 310, of the British Association for 1896).
compare pp. 240, 439, 440.
5 6 S YMPA THE TIC MA GIC c h a i>.
mimetic as well as sympathetic, since that which is done to
the thing is in a way a copy of what the person is expected
to do. We can now understand why the navel-string of the
King of Uganda is preserved with the greatest care all
through his life. It is wrapt in cloth, and the wrappers
increase in number as the king grows from infancy to man-
hood, until it assumes the appearance of a human figure
swathed in cloth. The official who has charge of it is
one of the highest ministers of state, and it is his duty
from time to time to present the precious bundle to the
kingj
A curious application of the doctrine of sympathy is the
relation commonly believed to exist between a wounded man
and the agent of the wound, so that whatever is subsequently
done by or to the agent must correspondingly affect the
patient either for good or evil. Thus Pliny tells us that if
you have wounded a man and are sorry for it, you have only
to spit on the hand that gave the wound, and the pain of
the sufferer will be instantly alleviated.2 In Melanesia, if a
man's friends get possession of the arrow which wounded
him, they keep it in a damp place or in cool leaves, for
then the inflammation will be trifling and will soon subside.
Meantime the enemy who shot the arrow is hard at work to
aggravate the wound by all means in his power. For this
purpose he and his friends drink hot and burning juices and
chew irritating leaves, for this will clearly inflame and
irritate the wound. Further, they keep the bow near the
fire to make the wound which it has inflicted hot ; and for
the same reason they put the arrow-head, if it has been
recovered, into the fire. Moreover, they are careful to keep
the bow-string taut and to twang it occasionally, for this
will cause the wounded man to suffer from tension of the
nerves and spasms of tetanus.3 Similarly when a Kwakiutl
Indian of British Columbia had bitten a piece out of an
enemy's arm, he used to drink hot water afterwards for
the purpose of thereby inflaming the wound in his foe's
1 I am indebted for this information 2 Pliny, Nat. Hist, xxviii. 36.
to my friend the Rev. John Roscoe, of
the Church Missionary Society, mis- 3 R. H. Codrington, The Melan-
sionary in Uganda. esians (Oxford, 1S91 ), p. 310.
S YMPA THE TIC MA GIC
57
body.1 Among the Lkungen Indians of the same region it is
a rule that an arrow, or any other weapon that has wounded
a man, must be hidden by his friends, who have to be
careful not to bring it near the fire till the wound is
healed. If a knife or an arrow which is still covered
with a man's blood were thrown into the fire, the wounded
man would grow very ill.2 " It is constantly received
and avouched," says Bacon, " that the anointing of the
weapon that maketh the wound will heal the wound
itself. In this experiment, upon the relation of men of
credit (though myself, as yet, am not fully inclined to
believe it), you shall note the points following : first, the
ointment wherewith this is done is made of divers in-
Igredients, whereof the strangest and hardest to come by
are the moss upon the skull of a dead man unburied, and
the fats of a boar and a bear killed in the act of generation."
The precious ointment compounded out of these and other
ingredients was applied, as the philosopher explains, not to
the wound but to the weapon, and that even though the
injured man was at a great distance and knew nothing about
it. The experiment, he tells us, had been tried of wiping
the ointment off the weapon without the knowledge of the
person hurt, with the result that he was presently in a great
rage of pain until the weapon was anointed again. More-
over, " it is affirmed that if you cannot get the weapon, yet
if you put an instrument of iron or wood resembling the
weapon into the wound, whereby it bleedeth, the anointing
of that instrument will serve and work the effect." 3 Remedies
of the sort which Bacon deemed worthy of his attention are
still in vogue in Suffolk. If a man cuts himself with a
bill-hook or a scythe he always takes care to keep the
weapon bright, and oils it to prevent the wound from
festering. If he runs a thorn or, as he calls it, a bush into
1 Fr. Boas, "The social organiza-
tion and the secret societies of the
Kwakiutl Indians," Report of the U.S.
National Museum for 1895, p. 440.
2 Ft. Boas, in Sixth Report on the
North- Western Tribes of Canada, p. 25
(separate reprint from the Report of the
British Association for 1890).
3 Francis Bacon, Natural History,
cent. x. § 998. Compare Brand,
Popular Antiquities, iii. 305, quoting
Werenfels. In Dryden's play The
Tempest (Act v. Scene 1) Ariel directs
Prospero to anoint the sword which
wounded Hippolito and to wrap it
up close from the air. See Dryden's
Works, ed. Scott, vol. iii. p. 191 (first
edition).
5 8 5 YMPA THE TIC MA GIC
CHAP.
his hand, he oils or greases the extracted thorn. A man
came to a doctor with an inflamed hand, having run a thorn
into it while he was hedging. On being told that the hand
was festering, he remarked, " That didn't ought to, for I
greased the bush well arter I pulled it out." If a horse
wounds its foot by treading on a nail, a Suffolk groom will
invariably preserve the nail, clean it, and grease it every day,
to prevent the foot from festering. Arguing in the same
way, a Suffolk woman, whose sister had burnt her face with
a fiat-iron, observed that " the face would never heal till the
iron had been put out of the way ; and even if it did heal,
it would be sure to break out again every time the iron was
heated." l Similarly in the Harz mountains they say that
if you cut yourself, you ought to smear the knife or the
scissors with fat and put the instrument away in a dry place
in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost. As the knife dries, the wound heals.'2 Other people,
however, in Germany say that you should stick the knife in
some damp place in the ground, and that your hurt will heal
as the knife rusts.3 Others again, in Bavaria, recommend
you to smear the axe or whatever it is with blood and put
it under the eaves.4
The train of reasoning which thus commends itself to
English and German rustics, in common with the savages
of Melanesia and America, is carried a step further by the
aborigines of Central Australia, who conceive that under
certain circumstances the near relations of a wounded man
must grease themselves, restrict their diet, and regulate
their behaviour in other ways in order to ensure his
recovery. Thus when a lad has been circumcised and the
wound is not yet healed, his mother may not eat opossum,
or a certain kind of lizard, or carpet snake, or any kind of
fat, for otherwise she would retard the healing of the boy's
1 W. W. Groome, "Suffolk Leech- 1855), p. 82.
craft," Folklore, vi. (1895), p. 126. Cp. 3 J. W. Wolf, Beitrage zur deutschen
County Folklore : Suffolk, ediled by Lady Mythologie, i. p. 225, § 282.
E. C. Gurdon, p. 25 jy/. Alike belief and x Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde
practice occur in Sussex (C. Latham, der Ronigreichs Bayerti, iv. 1. p. 223.
"West Sussex Superstitions," Folklore A further recommendation is to stroke
Record,!. 43 sq.). See further E.S.Hart- the wound or the instrument with a
land, The Legend of Perseus, ii. 169-172. twig of an ash-tree and then keep the
2 H. Prohle, Harzbilder (Leipsic, twig in a dark place.
i S YMPA THE TIC MA G1C 59
wound. Every day she greases her digging-sticks and never
lets them out of her sight ; at night she sleeps with them
close to her head. No one is allowed to touch them. Every
day also she rubs her body all over with grease, as in some
way this is believed to help her son's recovery.1 Another
refinement of the same principle is due to the ingenuity of
the German peasant. It is said that when one of his beasts
breaks its leg, a Hessian farmer will bind up the broken leg
of a chair or table with bandages and splints in due form.
For nine days thereafter the bandaged chair-leg or table-leg
may not be touched or moved. Then the animal that was
lame will be whole again.'2 In this last case it is clear that
we have passed wholly out of the region of sympathetic
magic in the strict sense and into the region of imitative
magic; the chair-leg, which is treated instead of the beast's
leg, in no sense belongs to the animal, and the application
of bandages to it is a mere simulation of the treatment
which a more rational surgery would bestow on the real
patient.
The sympathetic connection supposed to exist between
)a. man and the weapon which has wounded him is probably
(founded on the notion that the blood on the weapon con-
tinues to feel with the blood in his body. Strained and
unnatural as this idea may seem to us, it is perhaps less so
than the belief that magic sympathy is maintained between
a person and his clothes, so that whatever is done to the
clothes will be felt by the man himself, even though he may
be far away at the time. In the Wotjobaluk tribe of
Victoria a wizard would sometimes get hold of a man's
opossum rug and tie it up with some small spindle-shaped
pieces of casuarina wood, on which he had made certain
marks, such as likenesses of his victim and of a poisonous
snake. This bundle he would then roast slowly in the fire,
and as he did so the man who had owned the opossum rug
would fall sick. If the patient suspected what was happen-
ing, he would send to the wizard and beg him to let him
have the rug back. If the wizard consented, " he would
1 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes unci Gebrauchc im Lichte der heid-
of Central Australia, p. 250. niscken Vorzeit (Marburg, 18S8), p.
2 W. Kolbe, Hessische Volks- Sitten 87.
60 S YMPA THE TIC MA GIC chap.
give the thing back, telling the sick man's friends to put it
in water, so as to wash the fire out." In such cases, we are
told, the sick man would feel cooled and would most likely
recover.1 In Tanna, one of the New Hebrides, a man who
had a grudge at another and desired his death would try to
get possession of a cloth which had touched the sweat of his
enemy's body. If he succeeded, he rubbed the cloth care-
fully over with the leaves and twigs of a certain tree, rolled
and bound cloth, twigs, and leaves into a long sausage-
shaped bundle, and burned it slowly in the fire. As the
bundle was consumed, the victim fell ill, and when it was
reduced to ashes, he died.2 In this last form of enchantment,'
however, the magical sympathy may be supposed to exist
not so much between the man and the cloth as between
the man and the sweat which issued from his body. But
in other cases of the same sort it seems that the garment
by itself is enough to give the sorcerer a hold upon his
victim. The witch in Theocritus, while she melted a
waxen image of her faithless lover in order that he might
melt with love of her, did not forget to throw into the
fire a shred of his cloak which he had dropped in her
house.3 In Prussia they say that if you cannot catch a
thief the next best thing you can do is to get hold of a
garment which he may have shed in his flight ; for if you
beat it soundly, the thief will fall sick. This belief is firmly
rooted in the popular mind. Some sixty or seventy years
ago, in the neighbourhood of Berend, a man was detected
trying to steal honey, and fled leaving his coat behind him.
When he heard that the enraged owner of the honey was
mauling his lost coat, he was so alarmed« that he took to
his bed and died.4
These examples may suffice to illustrate the general
principles of sympathetic magic both in the wider and
1 A. W. Howitt, " On Australian buries under her threshold certain
medicine men," Journal of the Anthro- personal relics {exuviae) which her
pologicai Institute, xvi. (1887), p. 28 sq. lover had left behind.
2 B. T. SomerviUe, " Notes on some 4 Tettau und Temme, Volkssagen
islands of the New Hebrides," Journal Ostpreussetis, Litthauens und West-
of the Anthropological Institute, xxiii. preussens (Berlin, 1837), p. 283 sq.
(1894), p. 19. For more evidence of the same sort, see
3 Theocritus,/^, ii. 53 sq. Similarly E. S. Hartland, legend of Perseus, ii.
the witch in Virgil (Eclog. viii. 92 sqq.) 86 sqq.
THE OR V OF MA GIC 6 1
the narrower sense of the term. In a few of the cases
"cited we have seen that the operation of spirits is assumed,
and that an attempt is made to win their favour by prayer
and sacrifice. But these cases are exceptional ; they
exhibit magic tinged and alloyed with religion. Wherever
sympathetic magic occurs in its pure unadulterated form, it
assumes that in nature one event follows another necessarily
and invariably without the intervention of any spiritual
or personal agency. Thus its fundamental conception
is identical with that of modern science ; underlying the
. whole system is a faith, implicit but real and firm, in the
order and uniformity of nature. The magician does not
doubt that the same causes will always produce the same
effects, that the performance of the proper ceremony,
accompanied by the appropriate spell, will inevitably be
attended by the desired results, unless, indeed, his in-
cantations should chance to be thwarted and foiled by the
more potent charms of another sorcerer. He supplicates no
higher power ; he sues the favour of no fickle and wayward
being ; he abases himself before no awful deity. Yet his
power, great as he believes it to be, is by no means arbitrary
Iand unlimited. He can wield it only so long as he strictly
conforms to the rules of his art, or to what may be called the
laws of nature as conceived by him. To neglect these rules,
to break these laws in the smallest particular is to incur
failure, and may even expose the unskilful practitioner
himself to the utmost peril. If he claims a sovereignty over
nature, it is a constitutional sovereignty rigorously limited in
its scope and exercised in exact conformity with ancient
usage. Thus the analogy between the magical and the
scientific conceptions of the world is close. In both of them
-.the succession of events is perfectly regular and certain, being
determined by immutable laws, the operation of which can
*be foreseen and calculated precisely ; the elements of caprice,
of chance, and of accident are banished from the course of
nature. Both of them open up a seemingly boundless vista
of possibilities to him who knows the causes of things and
can touch the secret springs that set in motion the vast and
intricate mechanism of the world. Hence the strong attrac-
tion which magic and science alike have exercised on the
\
62 DEFECT OF MAGIC chap.
human mind ; hence the powerful stimulus that both have
given to the pursuit of knowledge. They lure the weary-
inquirer, the footsore seeker, on through the wilderness of
disappointment in the present by their endless promises of
the future ; they take him up to the top of an exceeding
high mountain and show him, beyond the dark clouds and
rolling mists at his feet, a vision of the celestial city, far off,
it may be, but radiant with unearthly splendour, bathed in
the light of dreams.
The fatal flaw of magic lies not in its general assumption
of a succession of events determined by law, but in its total
misconception of the nature of the particular laws which
govern that succession. If we analyse the various cases off/ *
sympathetic magic which have been passed in review in the
preceding pages, and which may be taken as fair samples of i
the bulk, we shall find them to be all mistaken applications \
of one or other of two great fundamental laws of thought,
namely, the association of ideas by similarity and the associa-J
tion of ideas by contiguity in space or time.1 A mistaken'
association of similar ideas produces imitative or mimetic
magic ; a mistaken association of contiguous ideas produces'
sympathetic magic in the narrower sense of the word. The
principles of association are excellent in themselves, and
indeed absolutely essential to the working of the ' human
mind. Legitimately applied they yield science; illegitimately/
applied they yield magic, the bastard sister of science. It
is therefore a truism, almost a tautology, to say that all
magic is necessarily false and barren; for were it ever to
become true and fruitful, it would no longer be magic but
science. From the earliest times man has been engaged in
a search for general rules whereby to turn the order of
natural phenomena to his own advantage, and in the long
search he has scraped together a great hoard of such
maxims, some of them golden and some of them mere
dross. The true or golden rules constitute the body of
applied science which we call the arts ; the false are magic.
If magic is thus next of kin to science, we have still to
inquire how it stands related to religion. But the view we
take of that relation will necessarily be coloured by the idea
1 Compare E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture,2 i. 1 15 sgq.
i MAGIC AND RELIGION 63
which we have formed of the nature of religion itself; hence
a writer may reasonably be expected to define his conception
of religion before he proceeds to investigate its relation to
magic. There is probably no subject in the world about
which opinions differ so much as the nature of religion, and
to frame a definition of it which would satisfy every one must
obviously be impossible. All that a writer can do is, first,
to say clearly what he means by religion, and afterwards
to employ the word consistently in that sense throughout
his work. By religion^ then, I understand a propitiation /KA
or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed
to direct and control the course of nature and of human life.
In this sense it will readily be perceived that religion is
opposed in principle both to magic and to science. For all
conciliation implies that the being conciliated is a conscious or
personal agent, that his conduct is in some measure uncertain,
and that he can be prevailed upon to vary it in the desired
direction by a judicious appeal to his interests, his appetites,
or his emotions. Conciliation is never employed towards
things which are regarded as inanimate, nor towards persons
whose behaviour in the particular circumstances is known
to be determined with absolute certainty. Thus in so far',
as religion assumes the world to be directed by conscious I
agents who may be turned from their purpose by persuasion,-
it stands in fundamental antagonism to magic as well as to
science, both of which take for granted that the course of
nature is determined, not by the passions or caprice of
personal beings, but by the operation of immutable laws
acting mechanically.1 In magic, indeed, the assumption is
only implicit, but in science it is explicit. It is true that
magic often deals with spirits, which are personal agents of
the kind assumed by religion ; but whenever it does so in
its proper form, it treats them exactly in the same fashion
1 The opposition of principle be- tained by Professor H. Oldenber" in
tween magic and religion is well his notable book Die Religion des Veda
brought out by Sir A. C. Lyall in his (Berlin, 1S94) ; see especially pp. 58
Asiatic Studies, First Series (London, sq. , 311 sqq., 476 sqq. When I wrote
1899), i. 99 sqq. It is also insisted this book originally I failed to realise
on by Mr. F. B. Jevons in his Intro- the extent of the opposition, because I
duction to the History of Religion had not formed a clear general concep-
(London, 1896). The distinction is tion of the nature of religion, and was
clearly apprehended and sharply main- disposed to class magic loosely under it.
64 MAGIC AND RELIGION chap.
as it treats inanimate agents — that is, it constrains or coerces
instead of conciliating or propitiating them as religion would
do. In ancient Egypt, for example, the magicians claimed
the power of compelling even the highest gods to do their
bidding, and actually threatened them with destruction in case
of disobedience.1 Similarly in India at the present day the
great Hindoo trinity itself of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva is
subject to the sorcerers, who, by means of their spells, exercise
such an ascendency over the mightiest deities, that these
are bound submissively to execute on earth below, or in heaven
above, whatever commands their masters the magicians may
please to issue.2 This radical conflict of principle between
magic and religion sufficiently explains the relentless hostility
with which in history the priest has often pursued the magician.
The haughty self-sufficiency of the magician, his arrogant
demeanour towards the higher powers, and his unabashed
claim to exercise a sway like theirs could not but revolt the
priest, to whom, with his awful sense of the divine majesty,
and his humble prostration in presence of it, such claims and
such a demeanour must have appeared an impious and
blasphemous usurpation of prerogatives that belong to God
alone. And sometimes, we may suspect, lower motives con-
curred to whet the edge of the priest's hostility. He pro-
fessed to be the proper medium, the true intercessor between
God and man, and no doubt his interests as well as his feel-
ings were often injured by a rival practitioner, who preached
a surer and smoother road to fortune than the rugged and
slippery path of divine favour.
Yet this antagonism, familiar as it is to us, seems to
have made its appearance comparatively late in the history
of religion. At an earlier stage the functions of priest and
sorcerer were often combined or, to speak perhaps more
correctly, were not yet differentiated from each other. To
serve his purpose man wooed the good -will of gods or
spirits by prayer and sacrifice, while at the same time he
had recourse to ceremonies and forms of words which he
1 A. Wiedemann, Die Religion der sique: lesarigines (Paris, 1895), p.2i2jy.
alt en Aegypter (Munster i. W. , 1890), - Dubois, Maeurs, institutions et
pp. 142-145, 148 ; G. Maspero, His- cMmonies des peuples de IVnde, ii.
toireanciennedes penplesde P Orient das- 60 sqq.
i MAGIC AND RELIGION 65
hoped would of themselves bring about the desired result
without the help of god or devil. In short, he performed
religious and magical rites simultaneously ; he uttered prayers
and incantations almost in the same breath, knowing or
recking little of the theoretical inconsistency of his behaviour,
so long as by hook or crook he contrived to get what he
wanted. Instances of this fusion or confusion of magic with
religion have already met us in the practices of Melanesians
and of some East Indian islanders.1 So far as the Melanesians
are concerned, the general confusion cannot be better de-
scribed than in the words of Dr. R. H. Codrington : — " That
invisible power which is believed by the natives to cause all
such effects as transcend their conception of the regular
course of nature, and to reside in spiritual beings, whether in
the spiritual part of living men or in the ghosts of the dead,
being imparted by them to their names and to various things
that belong to them, such as stones, snakes, and indeed
objects of all sorts, is that generally known as mana. With-
out some understanding of this it is impossible to understand
the religious beliefs and practices of the Melanesians ; and
this again is the active force in all they do and believe to
be done in magic, white or black. By means of this men
are able to control or direct the forces of nature, to make rain
or sunshine, wind or calm, to cause sickness or remove it, to
know what is far off in time and space, to bring good luck
and prosperity, or to blast and curse." " By whatever name
it is called, it is the belief in this supernatural power, and
in the efficacy of the various means by which spirits and
ghosts can be induced to exercise it for the benefit of men,
that is the foundation of the rites and practices which can be
called religious ; and it is from the same belief that everything
which may be called Magic and Witchcraft draws its origin.
Wizards, doctors, weather- mongers, prophets, diviners,
dreamers, all alike, everywhere in the islands, work by this
power. There are many of these who may be said to exercise
their art as a profession ; they get their property and in-
fluence in this way. Every considerable village or settle-
ment is sure to have some one who can control the weather
and the waves, some one who knows how to treat sickness,
1 See above, pp. 19, 33, 45.
VOL. I Y
66 MAGIC AND RELIGION chap.
some one who can work mischief with various charms. There
may be one whose skill extends to all these branches ; but
generally one man knows how to do one thing, and one
another. This various knowledge is handed down from father
to son, from uncle to sister's son, in the same way as
is the knowledge of the rites and methods of sacrifice and
prayer ; and very often the same man who knows the
sacrifice knows also the making of the weather, and of
charms for many purposes besides. But as there is no order
of priests, there is also no order of magicians or medicine-
men. Almost every man of consideration knows how to
approach some ghost or spirit, and has some secret of occult
practices." 1
The same confusion of magic and religion has survived
among peoples that have risen to higher levels of culture.
It was rife in ancient India and ancient Egypt ; it is by no
means extinct among European peasantry at the present
day. With regard to ancient India we are told by an
eminent Sanscrit scholar that " the sacrificial ritual at the
earliest period of which we have detailed information is
pervaded with practices that breathe the spirit of the most
primitive magic." 2 Again, the same writer observes that
" the ritual of the very sacrifices for which the metrical
prayers were composed is described in the other Vedic texts
as saturated from beginning to end with magical practices
which were to be carried out by the sacrificial priests." In
particular he tells us that the rites celebrated on special
occasions, such as marriage, initiation, and the anointment
of a king, " are complete models of magic of every kind, and
in every case the forms of magic employed bear the stamp
of the highest antiquity." 3 Speaking of the importance of
magic in the East, and especially in Egypt, Professor Maspero
remarks that " we ought not to attach to the word magic the
degrading idea which it almost inevitably calls up in the
mind of a modern. Ancient magic was the very foundation/
of religion. The faithful who desired to obtain some favour!
xfc>'
1 R. H. Codiington, The Melanesi- 3 Ibid. p. 477. For particular ex-
ans, p. 191 sq. amples of the blending of magical with
religious ritual in ancient India see
2 H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des pp. 311 sqq., 369 sq., 476 sqq., 522
Veda, p. 59. sq. of the same work.
MAGIC AND RELIGION 67
rom a god had no chance of succeeding except by laying
hands on the deity, and this arrest could only be effected by
means of a certain number of rites, sacrifices, prayers, and
hants, which the god himself had revealed, and which
obliged him to do what was demanded of him." x Accord-
ing to another distinguished Egyptologist " the belief that
there are words and actions by which man can influence all
the powers of nature and all living things, from animals up
;to gods, was inextricably interwoven with everything the
Egyptians did and everything they left undone. Above all,
the whole system of burial and of the worship of the dead is
completely dominated by it. The wooden puppets which
relieved the dead man from toil, the figures of the maid-
servants who baked bread for him, the sacrificial formulas
by the recitation of which food was procured for him, what
are these and all the similar practices but magic ? And as
men cannot help themselves without magic, so neither can
the gods ; the gods also wear amulets to protect themselves,
and use magic spells to constrain each other." 2 But though
we can perceive the union of discrepant elements in the faith
and practice of the ancient Egyptians, it would be rash to
assume that the people themselves did so. " Egyptian
religion," says Professor Wiedemann, " was not one and
homogeneous ; it was compounded of the most heterogeneous
elements, which seemed to the Egyptian to be all equally
justified. He did not care whether a doctrine or a myth
belonged to what, in modern scholastic phraseology, we
should call faith or superstition ; it was indifferent to him
whether we should rank it as religion or magic, as worship
I or sorcery. All such classifications were foreign to the
Egyptian. To him no one doctrine seemed more or less
j justified than another. Nay, he went so far as to allow the
most flagrant contradictions to stand peaceably side by
side."3
Among the ignorant classes of modern Europe the same
confusion of ideas, the same mixture of religion and magic,
crops up in various forms. Thus we are told that in France
1 G. Maspero, Etudes de mythologie isches Leben im Allerlum, p. 471.
et d'arcktfologie igyptienne (Paris, 1S93), 3 A. Wiedemann, " Ein altagpyt-
j. 106. ischer Weltschopfungsmythus," Am
2 A. Erman, Aegyplen und aegypt- Urquell, N.F., ii. (189S), p. 95 sq.
68 MAGIC AND RELIGION chap.
" the majority of the peasants still believe that the priest;
possesses a secret and irresistible power over the elements.
By reciting certain prayers which he alone knows and has
the right to utter, yet for the utterance of which he must
afterwards demand absolution, he can, on an occasion ofi
pressing danger, arrest or reverse for a moment the action o|
the eternal laws of the physical world. The winds, the
storms, the hail, and the rain are at his command and obey
his will. The fire also is subject to him, and the flames of
a conflagration are extinguished at his word." * For example,
French peasants used to be, perhaps are still, persuaded that
the priests could celebrate, with certain special rites, a " Mass
of the Holy Spirit," of which the efficacy was so miraculous
that it never met with any opposition from the divine will ;
God was forced to grant whatever was asked of Him in this
form, however rash and importunate might be the petition.
No idea of impiety or irreverence attached to the rite in the
minds of those who, in some of the great extremities of life,
sought by this singular means to take the kingdom of
heaven by storm. The secular priests generally refused
to say the " Mass of the Holy Spirit " ; but the monks,
especially the Capuchin friars, had the reputation of yielding
with less scruple to the entreaties of the anxious and dis-
tressed.2 In the constraint thus supposed by Catholic
peasantry to be laid by the priest upon the deity we seem
to have an exact counterpart of the power which, as we saw,
the ancient Egyptians ascribed to their magicians.3 Again,
to take another example, in many villages of Provence the
priest is still reputed to possess the faculty of averting
storms. It is not every priest who enjoys this reputation ;
and in some villages when a change of pastors takes place,
the parishioners are eager to learn whether the new incum-
bent has the power (pouder), as they call it. At the first
sign of a heavy storm they put him to the proof by inviting
him to exorcise the threatening clouds ; and if the result
answers to their hopes, the new shepherd is assured of the
sympathy and respect of his flock. In some parishes, where
1 T. Lecoeur, Esquisses du Bocage rotnanesque et merveilleuse (Paris and
Normand, ii, 78. Rouen, 1845), p. 308.
2 Amelie Bosquet, La Normandie 3 See above, p. 64.
i MAGIC AND RELIGION 69
the reputation of the curate in this respect stood higher than
that of his rector, the relations between the two have been
so strained in consequence, that the bishop has had to trans-
late the rector to another benefice.1 Again, Gascon peasants
believe that to revenge themselves on their enemies bad men
will sometimes induce a priest to say a mass called the Mass
of Saint Secaire. Very few priests know this mass, and
three-fourths of those who do know it would not say it for
love or money. None but wicked priests dare to perform
the gruesome ceremony, and you may be quite sure that
they will have a very heavy account to render for it at the
last day. No curate or bishop, not even the archbishop of
Auch, can pardon them ; that right belongs to the pope of
Rome alone. The Mass of Saint Secaire may be said only
in a ruined or deserted church, where owls mope and hoot,
where bats flit in the gloaming, where gypsies lodge of
nights, and where toads squat under the desecrated altar.
Thither the bad priest comes by night with his light o' love,
and at the first stroke of eleven he begins to mumble the
mass backwards, and ends just as the clocks are knelling
the midnight hour. His leman acts as clerk. The host he
blesses is black and has three points ; he consecrates no
wine, but instead he drinks the water of a well into which
the body of an unbaptized infant has been flung. He makes
the sign of the cross, but it is on the ground and with his
left foot. And many other things he does which no good
Christian could look upon without being struck blind and
deaf and dumb for the rest of his life. But the man for
whom the mass is said withers away little by little, and
nobody can say what is the matter with him ; even the
doctors can make nothing of it. They do not know that he
is slowly dying of the Mass of Saint Secaire.2
tYet though magic is thus found to fuse and amalgamate
/ith religion in many ages and in many lands, there are
ome grounds for thinking that this fusion is not primitive,
1 L. J. B. Berenger-Feraud, Super- laires compares (Paris, 1854), p. 31
stitions et survivances (Paris, 1896), sqq.
i. 455 sq., iii. 217 sq., 222 sqq.
Compare id. , Reminiscences populaires 2 J.. F. Blade, Quatorze Superse-
de la Provence (Paris, 1885), p. 288 /ions Populaires de la Gascogne (Agen,
sqq. ; D. Monnier, Traditions popu- 1883), p. 16 sq.
70 MAGIC AND RELIGION chap.
and that there was a time when man trusted to magic alone
for the satisfaction of such wants as transcended his im-
mediate animal cravings. In the first place a consideration
of the fundamental notions of magic and religion may incline
us to surmise that magic is older than religion in the history
of humanity. We have seen that on the one hand magic is)>^
nothing but a mistaken application of the very simplest and
most elementary processes of the mind, namely the associa- •
tion of ideas by virtue of resemblance or contiguity ; and on
the other hand that religion assumes the operation of con-"
scious or personal agents, superior to man, behind the visible-
screen of nature. Obviously the conception of personal I
agents is more complex than a simple recognition of the ;
similarity or contiguity of ideas ; and a theory which
assumes that the course of nature is determined by conscious
agents is more abstruse and recondite, and requires for its
apprehension a far higher degree of intelligence and reflection
than the view that things succeed each other simply by
reason of their contiguity or resemblance. The very beasts
associate the ideas of things that are like each other or that
have been found together in their experience ; and they
could hardly survive for a day if they ceased to do so. But
who attributes to the animals a belief that the phenomena
of nature are worked by a multitude of invisible animals or
by one enormous and prodigiously strong animal behind the
scenes ? It is probably no injustice to the brutes to assume
that the honour of devising a theory of this latter sort must
be reserved for human reason. Thus, if magic be deduced
immediately from elementary processes of reasoning, and be,,
in fact, an error into which the mind falls almost spontaneously,
while religion rests on conceptions which the merely animal;
intelligence can hardly be supposed to have yet attained to,[
it becomes probable that magic arose before religion in the^
evolution of our race, and that man essayed to bend nature
to his wishes by the sheer force of spells and enchant-
ments before he strove to coax and mollify a coy, capri-
cious, or irascible deity by the soft insinuation of prayer
and sacrifice.
The conclusion which we have thus reached deductively
from a consideration of the fundamental ideas of religion and
i MAGIC AND RELIGION 71
magic is confirmed inductively by what we know of the
lowest existing race of mankind. To the student who in-
vestigates the development of vegetable and animal life on
our globe, Australia serves as a sort of museum of the past,
a region in which strange species of plants and animals,
representing types that have long been extinct elsewhere,
may still be seen living and thriving, as if on purpose to
satisfy the curiosity of these later ages as to the fauna and
flora of the antique world. This singularity Australia owes
to the comparative smallness of its area, the waterless and
desert character of a large part of its surface, and its remote
situation, severed by wide oceans from the other and greater
continents. For these causes, by concurring to restrict the
number of competitors in the struggle for existence, have
mitigated the fierceness of the struggle itself; and thus many
a quaint old-fashioned creature, many an antediluvian oddity,
which would long ago have been rudely elbowed and hustled
out of existence in more progressive countries, has been suffered
to jog quietly along in this preserve of Nature's own, this
peaceful garden, where the hand on the dial of time seems
to move more slowly than in the noisy bustling world
outside. And the same causes which have favoured the
survival of antiquated types of plants and animals in
Australia, have conserved the aboriginal race at a lower
level of mental and social development than is now
occupied by any other set of human beings spread over an
equal area elsewhere. Without metals, without houses,
without agriculture, the Australian savages represent the
stage of material culture which was reached by our remote
iancestors in the Stone Age ; and the rudimentary state of the
arts of life among them reflects faithfully the stunted con-
dition of their minds. Now in regard to the question of the
respective priority of magic or religion in the evolution of
thought, it is very important to observe that among these
rude savages, while magic is universally practised, rejigion in
the sense of a propitiation or conciliation of the higher
powers seems to be nearly unknown. Roughly speaking,
all men in Australia are magicians, but not one is a priest ;
everybody fancies he can influence his fellows or the course
of nature by sympathetic magic, but nobody dreams of pro-
72
MAGIC AND RELIGION
CHAP.
pitiating gods or spirits by prayer and sacrifice.1 " It may
be truly affirmed," says a recent writer on the Australians,
" that there was not a solitary native who did not believe as
firmly in the power of sorcery as in his own existence ; and
while anybody could practise it to a limited extent, there
were in every community a few men who excelled in pre-
tension to skill in the art. The titles of these magicians
varied with the community, but by unanimous consent the
1 In the south-eastern parts of
Australia, where the conditions of life
in respect of climate, water, and vege-
tation are more favourable than else-
where, some faint beginnings of religion
appear in the shape of a slight regard
J for the comfort of departed friends.
Thus some Victorian tribes are said to
have kindled fires near the bodies of
their dead in order to warm the ghost,
but " the recent custom of providing
food for it is derided by the intelligent
old aborigines as ' white fellow's
gammon ' " (J. Dawson, Australian
Aborigines, p. 50 jy.). Some tribes in
this south-eastern region are further
reported to believe in a supreme spirit,
who is regarded sometimes as a
benevolent, but more frequently as a
malevolent being (A. W. Howitt in
Journal of the Anthropological Institute,
xiii. (1884), p. 191). Brewin, the
supreme being of the Kurnai, was at
first identified by two intelligent
members of the tribe with Jesus Christ,
but on further reflection they thought
he must be the devil (L. Fison and A.
W. Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai,
p. 255). But whether viewed as gods
or devils, it does not seem that these
spirits were ever worshipped. See A.
W. Howitt in Journal of the Anthro-
pological Institute, xiii. (1884), p. 459.
It is worth observing that in the same
districts which thus exhibit the germs
of religion, the organisation of society
and the family has also made the
greatest advance. The cause is prob-
ably the same in both cases, namely a
more plentiful supply of food due to
the greater fertility of the soil. See A.
W. Howitt in Joii7-nal of the Anthro-
pological Institute, xviii. (18S9), p.
32 sq. On the other hand, in the
parched and barren regions of Central
Australia, where magic attains its
highest importance, religion seems to
be entirely wanting. See Spencer and
Gillen, Native Tribes of Central
Australia. The traces of a higher
faith in Australia, where they occur, are
probably sometimes due to European
influence. " I am strongly of opinion,"
says one who knew the aborigines well,
" that those who have written to show
that the Blacks had some knowledge of
God, practised prayer, and believed in
places of reward and punishment be-
yond the grave, have been imposed
upon, and that until they had learnt
something of Christianity from mis-
sionaries and others, the Blacks had no
beliefs or practices of the sort. Having
heard the missionaries, however, they
were not slow to invent what I may
call kindred statements with aboriginal
accessories, with a view to please and
surprise the whites " (E. M. Curr, The
Australian Race, i. 45). Sometimes
too the reported belief of the natives
in a Great or Good Spirit may rest
merely on a misunderstanding. Mr.
Lorimer Fison informs me (in a letter
dated 3rd June 1899) that a German
missionary, Mr. Siebert, resident in the
Dieri tribe of Central Australia, has
ascertained that their Mura Mura,
which Mr. Gason explained to be the
Good Spirit [Native Tribes of South
Australia, p. 260), is nothing more or
less than the ancestors in the "dream
times." There are male and female
Mura Mura — husbands, wives, and
children — just as among the Dieri at
the present day. Mr. Fison adds :
" The more I learn about savage tribes
the more I am convinced that among
them the ancestors grow into gods."
i MAGIC AND RELIGION 73
whites have called them ' doctors,' and they correspond to
the medicine -men and rain -makers of other barbarous
nations. The power of the doctor is only circumscribed by
the range of his fancy. He communes with spirits, takes
aerial flights at pleasure, kills or cures, is invulnerable and
invisible at will, and controls the elements." l
But if in the most primitive state of human society now
open to observation on the globe we find magic thus con-
spicuously present and religion conspicuously absent, may we
not reasonably conjecture that the civilised races of the world
have also at some period of their history passed through a
similar intellectual phase, that they attempted to force the
great powers of nature to do their pleasure before they
thought of courting their favour by offerings and prayer —
in short that, just as on the material side of human culture
there has everywhere been an Age of Stone, so on the
intellectual side there has everywhere been an Age of
Magic ? 2 There are reasons for answering this question in
the affirmative. When we survey the existing races of
mankind from Greenland to Tierra del Fuego, or from Scot-
land to Singapore, we observe that they are distinguished
one from the other by a great variety of religions, and that
these distinctions are not, so to speak, merely coterminous
with the broad distinctions of race, but descend into the
minuter subdivisions of states and commonwealths, nay, that
they honeycomb the town, the village, and even the family,
so that the surface of society all over the world is cracked
and seamed, wormed and sapped with rents and fissures and
yawning crevasses opened up by the disintegrating influence
of religious dissension. Yet when we have penetrated
through these differences, which affect mainly the intelligent
and thoughtful part of the community, we shall find under-
1 J. Mathew, Eaglehawk and Crow, Cap Horn,\\\. " Anthropologie, Ethno-
p. 142. Similarly among the Fuegians, graphie," par P. Hyades et J. Deniker
another of the lowest races of mankind, (Paris, 1891), pp. 253-257.
almost every old man is a magician, 2 The suggestion has been made by
who is supposed to have the power of Prof. H. Oldenberg (Die Religion des
life and death, and to be able to con- Veda, p. 59), who seems, however, to
trol the weather. But the members of regard a belief in spirits as part of the
the French scientific expedition to raw material of magic. If the view
Cape Horn could detect nothing worthy which I have put forward tentatively
the name of religion among these is correct, faith in magic is probably
savages. See Mission Scientifique da older than a belief in spirits.
74 MAGIC AND RELIGION chap.
lying them all a solid stratum of intellectual agreement
among the dull, the weak, the ignorant, and the superstitious,
who constitute, unfortunately, the vast majority of mankind.
One of the great achievements of the century which is now
nearing its end is to have run shafts down into this low
mental stratum in many parts of the world, and thus to have
discovered its substantial identity everywhere. It is beneath
our feet — and not very far beneath them — here in Europe
at the present day, and it crops up on the surface in the
heart of the Australian wilderness and wherever the advent
of a higher civilisation has not crushed it under grounds /
This universal faith, this truly Catholic creed, is a belief in
the efficacy of magic. While religious systems differ not
only in different countries, but in the same country in
different ages, the system of sympathetic magic remains
everywhere and at all times substantially alike in its prin-
ciples and practice. Among the ignorant and superstitious
classes of modern Europe it is very much what it was
thousands of years ago in Egypt and India, and what it now
is among the lowest savages surviving in the remotest
corners of the world. If the test of truth lay in a show of
hands or a counting of heads, the system of magic might
appeal, with far more reason than the Catholic Church, to the
proud motto, " Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus,"
as the sure and certain credential of its own infallibility.
It is not our business here to consider what bearing the
permanent existence of such a solid layer of savagery
beneath the surface of society, and unaffected by the super-
ficial changes of religion and culture, has upon the future of
humanity. The dispassionate observer, whose studies have
led him to plumb its depths, can hardly regard it otherwise
than as a standing menace to civilisation. We seem to
move on a thin crust which may at any moment be rent by
the subterranean forces slumbering below. From time to
time a hollow murmur underground or a sudden spirt of
flame into the air tells of what is going on beneath our feet.
Now and then the polite world is startled by a paragraph in
a newspaper which tells how in Scotland an image has been
found stuck full of pins for the purpose of killing an
obnoxious laird or minister, how a woman has been slowly
i MAGIC AND RELIGION 75
roasted to death as a witch in Ireland, or how a girl has
been murdered and chopped up in Russia to make those
candles of human tallow by whose light thieves hope to
pursue their midnight trade unseen.1 But whether the
influences that make for further progress, or those that
threaten to undo what has already been accomplished, will
ultimately prevail ; whether the kinetic energy of the
minority or the dead weight of the majority of mankind will
prove the stronger force to carry us up to higher heights or
to sink us into lower depths, are questions rather for the
sage, the moralist, and the statesman, whose eagle vision
scans the future, than for the humble student of the present
and the past. Here we are only concerned to ask how far
the uniformity, the universality, and the permanence of a
belief in magic, compared with the endless variety and the
shifting character of religious creeds, raises a presumption
that the former represents a ruder and earlier phase of the
human mind, through which all the races of mankind have
passed or are passing on their way to religion and science.
If an Age of Religion has thus everywhere, as I venture
to surmise, been preceded by an Age of Magic, it is natural
that we should inquire what causes have led mankind, or
rather a portion of them, to abandon magic as a principle
of faith and practice and to betake themselves to religion
instead. When we reflect upon the multitude, the variety,
and the complexity of the facts to be explained, and the
scantiness of our information regarding them, we shall be
ready to acknowledge that a full and satisfactory solution
of so profound a problem is hardly to be hoped for, and
that the most we can do in the present state of our know-
ledge is to hazard a more or less plausible conjecture. With
all due diffidence, then, I would suggest that a tardy
recognition of the inherent falsehood and barrenness of
magic set the more thoughtful part of mankind to cast about
for a truer theory of nature and a more fruitful method
of turning her resources to account. The shrewder intelli-
gences must in time have come to perceive that magical
1 See above, p. 1 7 sq. ; "The "Witch- Volksglaube imd religioser Branch der
burning at Clonmel," Folklore, vi. Siidslaven, p. 144 sqq.
(1895), PP. 373-384; F. S. Krauss,
76
MAGIC AND RELIGION
CHAT.
ceremonies and incantations did not really effect the results
which they were designed to produce, and which the majority
of their simpler fellows still believed that they did actually
produce. This great discovery of the inefficacy of magic must
have wrought a radical though probably slow revolution in
the minds of those who had the sagacity to make it. The dis-
fovery amounted to this, that men for the first time recognised
heir inability to manipulate at pleasure certain natural forces
which hitherto they had believed to be completely within
their control. It was a confession of human ignorance and
weakness. Man saw that he had taken for causes what
were no causes, and that all his efforts to work by means of
these imaginary causes had been vain. His painful toil had
been wasted, his curious ingenuity had been squandered to
no purpose. He had been pulling at strings to which
nothing was attached ; he had been marching, as he thought,
straight to his goal, while in reality he had only been tread-
ing in a narrow circle. Not that the effects which he had
striven so hard to produce did not continue to manifest
themselves. They were still produced, but not by him.
The rain still fell on the thirsty ground ; the sun still
pursued his daily, and the moon her nightly journey across
the sky ; the silent procession of the seasons still moved in
light and shadow, in cloud and sunshine across the earth ;
men were still born to labour and sorrow, and still, after a
brief sojourn here, were gathered to their fathers in the long
home hereafter. All things indeed went on as before, yet
all seemed different to him from whose eyes the old scales
had fallen. For he could no longer cherish the pleasing
illusion that it was he who guided the earth and the
heaven in their courses, and that they would cease to per-
form their great revolutions were he to take his feeble hand !
from the wheel. In the death of his enemies and his friends
he no longer saw a proof of the resistless potency of his own
or of hostile enchantments ; he now knew that friends and
foes alike had succumbed to a force stronger than any that
he could wield, and in obedience to a destiny which he was^
powerless to control.
Thus cut adrift from his ancient moorings and left to
toss on a troubled sea of doubt and uncertainty, his old
i MAGIC AND RELIGION 77
happy confidence in himself and his powers rudely shaken,
our primitive philosopher must have been sadly perplexed
and agitated till he came to rest, as in a quiet haven after a
tempestuous voyage, in a new system of faith and practice,
which seemed to offer a solution of his harassing doubts and
a substitute, however precarious, for that sovereignty over
nature which he had reluctantly abdicated. If the great
world went on its way without the help of him or his fellows,
it must surely be because there were other beings, like him-
self, but far stronger, who, unseen themselves, directed its
course and brought about all the varied series of events
which he had hitherto believed to be dependent on his own
magic. It was they, as he now believed, and not he himself,
who made the stormy wind to blow, the lightning to flash,
and the thunder to roll ; who had laid the foundations of
the solid earth and set bounds to the restless sea that it
might not pass ; who caused all the glorious lights of
heaven to shine ; who gave the fowls of the air their meat
and the wild beasts of the desert their prey ; who bade the
fruitful land to bring forth in abundance, the high hills to
be clothed with forests, the bubbling springs to rise under
the rocks in the valleys, and green pastures to grow by still
waters ; who breathed into man's nostrils and made him
live, or turned him to destruction by famine and pestilence
and war. To these mighty beings, whose handiwork he
traced in all the gorgeous and varied pageantry of nature,
man now addressed himself, humbly confessing his depend-
ence on their invisible power, and beseeching them of their
mercy to furnish him with all good things, to defend him
from the perils and dangers by which our mortal life is
compassed about on every hand, and finally to bring his
immortal spirit, freed from the burden of the body, to some
happier world beyond the reach of pain and sorrow, where
he might rest with them and with the spirits of good men in
joy and felicity for ever.
In this, or some such way as this, the deeper minds may
be conceived to have made the great transition from magic
to religion. But even in them the change can hardly ever
have been sudden ; probably it proceeded very slowly, and
required long ages for its more or less perfect accomplish-
78 MAGIC AND RELIGION chap.
ment. For the recognition of man's povverlessness to influence
the course of nature on a grand scale must have been gradual ;
he cannot have been shorn of the whole of his fancied
dominion at a blow. Step by step he must have been driven
back from his proud position ; foot by foot he must have
yielded, with a sigh, the ground which he had once viewed
as his own. Now it would be the wind, now the rain, now
the sunshine, now the thunder, that he confessed himself
unable to wield at will ; and as province after province of
nature thus fell from his grasp, till what had once seemed a
kingdom threatened to shrink into a prison, man must have
been more and more profoundly impressed with a sense of
his own helplessness and the might of the invisible beings by
whom he believed himself to be surrounded. Thus religion,
beginning as a slight and partial acknowledgment of powers
superior to man, tends with the growth of knowledge to.
deepen into a confession of man's entire and absolute depend-
ence on the divine ; his old free bearing is exchanged for an
attitude of lowliest prostration before the mysterious powers
of the unseen. But this deepening sense of religion, this
more perfect submission to the divine will in all things, affects
only those higher intelligences who have breadth of view
enough to comprehend the vastness of the universe and the
littleness of man. Small minds cannot grasp great ideas ; to
their narrow comprehension, their purblind vision, nothing
seems really great and important but themselves. Such
minds hardly rise into religion at all. They are, indeed,
drilled by their betters into an outward conformity with its
precepts and a verbal profession of its tenets ; but at heart
they cling to their old magical superstitions, which may be
discountenanced and forbidden, but cannot be eradicated by
religion, so long as they have their roots deep down in the
mental framework and constitution of the great majority of
mankind.
The reader may well be tempted to ask, How was it that
intelligent men did not sooner detect the fallacy of magic ?
How could they continue to cherish expectations that were
invariably doomed to disappointment ? With what heart
persist in playing venerable antics that led to nothing, and
mumbling solemn balderdash that remained without effect ?
i FALLACY OF MAGIC 79
Why cling to beliefs which were so flatly contradicted by
experience ? How dare to repeat experiments that had failed
so often ? The answer seems to be that the fallacy was far
from easy to detect, the failure by no means obvious, since
in many, perhaps in most cases, the desired event did actually
follow, at a longer or shorter interval, the performance of the
rite which was designed to bring it about ; and a mind of
more than common acuteness was needed to perceive that,
even in these cases, the rite was not necessarily the cause of
the event. A ceremony intended to make the wind blow or
the rain fall, or to work the death of an enemy, will always
be followed, sooner or later, by the occurrence it is meant to
bring to pass ; and primitive man may be excused for regard-
ing the occurrence as a direct result of the ceremony, and
the best possible proof of its efficacy. Similarly, rites observed
in the morning to help the sun to rise, and in spring to
wake the dreaming earth from her winter sleep, will invariably
appear to be crowned with success, at least within the tem-
perate zones ; for in these regions the sun lights his golden
fire in the east every morning, and year by year the vernal
earth decks herself afresh with a rich mantle of green. Hence
the practical savage, with his conservative instincts, might
well turn a deaf ear to the subtleties of the theoretical doubter,
the philosophic radical, who presumed to hint that sunrise
and spring might not, after all, be direct consequences of the
punctual performance of certain daily or yearly devotions,
and that the sun might perhaps continue to rise and trees
to blossom though the devotions were occasionally inter-
mitted, or even discontinued altogether. These sceptical
doubts would naturally be repelled by the other with scorn
and indignation as airy reveries subversive of the faith, and
manifestly contradicted by experience. " Can anything be
plainer," he might say, " than that I light my twopenny candle
on earth and that the sun then kindles his great fire in
heaven ? I should be glad to know whether, when I have
put on my green robe in spring, the trees do not afterwards
do the same ? These are facts patent to everybody, and on
them I take my stand. I am a plain practical man, not one
of your theorists and splitters of hairs and choppers of logic.
Theories and speculation and all that may be very well in
8o TYPES OF MAN-GOD chap.
their way, and I have not the least objection to your indulging
in them, provided, of course, you do not put them in practice.
But give me leave to stick to facts ; then I know where I am."
The fallacy of this reasoning is obvious to us, because it
happens to deal with facts about which we have long made
up our minds. But let an argument of precisely the same
calibre be applied to matters which are still under debate,
and it may be questioned whether a British audience would
not applaud it as sound, and esteem the speaker who used it
a safe man — not brilliant or showy, perhaps, but thoroughly
sensible and hard-headed. If such reasonings could pass
muster among ourselves, need we wonder that they long
escaped detection by the savage ?
The patient reader may remember — and the impatient
reader who has quite forgotten is respectfully reminded —
that we were led to plunge into the labyrinth of magic, in
which we have wandered for so many pages, by a considera-
tion of two different types of man-god. This is the clue
which has guided our devious steps through the maze, and
brought us out at last on higher ground, whence, resting a
little by the way, we can look back over the path we have
already traversed and forward to the longer and steeper road
we have still to climb.
As a result of the foregoing discussion, the two types of
human gods may^conveniently be distinguished as the reli-
gious and the magical man-god respectively. In the former,,
a being of an order different from and superior to man isl
supposed to become incarnate, for a longer or a shorter time,
in a human body, manifesting his superhuman power and
knowledge by miracles wrought and prophecies uttered
through the medium of the fleshly tabernacle in which he has.
deigned to take up his abode. This may also appropriately!
be called the inspired or incarnate type of man-god. In it1
the human body is merely a frail earthly vessel filled with a
divine and immortal spirit. On the other hand, a man-go
of the magical sort is nothing but a man who possesses in an
unusually high degree powers which most of his fellows
arrogate to themselves on a smaller scale ; for in rude society!
there is hardly a person who does not dabble in magic!
Thus, whereas a man-god of the former or inspired type"
i TYPES OF MAN-GOD 81
derives his divinity from a deity who has stooped to hide his
heavenly radiance behind a dull mask of earthly mould, a
man-god of the latter type draws his extraordinary power from
a certain physical sympathy with nature. He is not merely
the receptacle of a divine spirit. His whole being, body and
soul, is so delicately attuned to the harmony of the world
that a touch of his hand or a turn of his head may send a
thrill vibrating through the universal framework of things ;
and conversely his divine organism is acutely sensitive to
such slight changes of environment as would leave ordinary
mortals wholly unaffected. But the line between these two
types of man-god, however sharply we may draw it in theory,
is seldom to be traced with precision in practice, and in what
follows I shall not insist on it.
To readers long familiarised with the conception of natural
law, the belief of primitive man that he can rule the elements
must be so foreign that it may be well to illustrate it by
examples. When we have seen that in early society men
who make no pretence at all of being gods, do nevertheless
commonly believe themselves to be invested with powers
which to us would seem supernatural, we shall have the less
difficulty in comprehending the extraordinary range of powers
ascribed to persons who are actually regarded as divine.
Of all natural phenomena there are, perhaps, none which
civilised man feels himself more powerless to influence than
the rain, the sun, and the wind ; yet all these are commonly
supposed by savages to be in some degree under their
control.
In all countries where the deposit of moisture is uncer-
tain and irregular, and where consequently vegetation and
animals are liable to suffer either from prolonged droughts or
excessive rains, man has attempted to regulate the heavenly
water-supply to suit his own convenience. Such attempts
are by no means confined, as the cultivated reader might
imagine, to the naked inhabitants of those sultry lands like
Central Australia and some parts of Eastern and Southern
Africa, where often for months together the pitiless sun
beats down out of a blue and cloudless sky on the parched
and gaping earth. They are, or used to be, common enough
among outwardly civilised folk in the moister climate of
vol. i G
82 MAKING RAIN chap.
Europe. The means adopted to compass the wished-for end
is often imitative magic ; the desired event is supposed to be
produced by mimicking it. Thus, for example, in a village
near Dorpat, in Russia, when rain was much wanted, three
men used to climb up the fir-trees of an old sacred grove.
One of them drummed with a hammer on a kettle or small
cask to imitate thunder ; the second knocked two fire-brands
together and made the sparks fly, to imitate lightning ; and
the third, who was called " the rain-maker," had a bunch of
twigs with which he sprinkled water from a vessel on all
sides.1 In Halmahera, or Gilolo, a large island to the west
of New Guinea, a wizard makes rain by dipping a branch of
a particular kind of tree in water and then scattering the
moisture from the dripping bough over the ground." In
Ceram it is enough to dedicate the bark of a certain tree to
the spirits, and lay it in water.3 In New Britain the rain-
maker wraps some leaves of a red and green striped creeper
in a banana-leaf, moistens the bundle with water, and buries
it in the ground ; then he imitates with his mouth the
plashing of rain.4 Amongst the Omaha Indians of North
America, when the corn is withering for want of rain, the
members of the sacred Buffalo Society fill a large vessel with
water and dance four times round it. One of them drinks
some of the water and spirts it into the air, making a fine
spray in imitation of a mist or drizzling rain. Then he
upsets the vessel, spilling the water on the ground ; where-
upon the dancers fall down and drink up the water, getting
mud all over their faces. Lastly, they spirt the water into
the air, making a fine mist. This saves the corn.5 In
spring-time the Natchez of North America used to club
together to purchase favourable weather for their crops from
the wizards. If rain was needed, the wizards fasted and
danced with pipes full of water in their mouths. The pipes
1 W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Papua, p. 114.
Feldkulte, p. 342, note. 4 R. Parkinson, Im Bismarck Archi-
2 C. F. H. Campen, " De Gods- pel, p. 143.
dienstbegrippen der Halmaherasche 5 J. Owen Dorsey, " Omaha Socio-
Alfoeren," Tijdschrift voor Indische logy," Third Annual Report of the
Taal- Land- en Vblkenkunde, xxvii. Bureau of Ethnology (Washington,
447. 1SS4), p. 347. Compare Charlevoix,
3 J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en Voyage dans P Amcrique septentrionale,
kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en ii. 187.
i MAKING RAIN 83
were perforated like the nozzle of a watering-can, and through
the holes the rain-maker blew the water towards that part of
the sky where the clouds hung heaviest. But if fine weather
was wanted, he mounted the roof of his hut, and with ex-
tended arms, blowing with all his might, he beckoned to the
clouds to pass by.1 Among the Shushwap Indians of
British Columbia twins are credited with the power of mak-
ing good or bad weather at pleasure. To produce rain, they
take a small basket filled with water, which they spill into
the air ; to bring clear weather they shake a small, flat
piece of wood which is attached to a stick by a string.2
Amoncr the Swazies and Hlubies of South-Eastern Africa the
rain-doctor draws water from a river with various mystic
ceremonies, and carries it into a cultivated field. Here he
throws it in jets from his vessel high into the air, and the
falling spray is believed to draw down the clouds and to
make rain by sympathy.3 To squirt water from the mouth
is a West African mode of making rain.4 Among the Wa-
huma, on the Albert Nyanza Lake, the rain-maker pours
water into a vessel in which he has first placed a dark stone
as large as the hand. Pounded plants and the blood of a
black goat are added to the water, and with a bunch of
magic herbs the sorcerer sprinkles the mixture towards the
sky.0 In this charm special efficacy is no doubt attributed
to the dark stone and the black goat, their colour being
chosen from its resemblance to that of the rain-clouds, as
we shall see presently. During the summer months frequent
droughts occur among the Japanese alps. To procure rain
a party of hunters armed with guns climb to the top of
Mount Jonendake, one of the most imposing peaks in the
range. By kindling a bonfire, discharging their guns, and
rolling great masses of rocks down the cliffs, they represent
the wished-for storm ; and rain is supposed always to follow
within a few days.0 Amongst the Wotjobaluk tribe of
1 Lettres e~difiantes et curieuses, nou- 4 Labat, Relation historique de
velle edition, vii. 29 sq. FEthiopie occidentale, ii. 180.
2 Fr. Boas, in Sixth Report on Ike 5 Fr. Stuhlmann, Mit Eniin Pascha
North- Western Tribes of Canada, p. ins Herz von Afrika (Berlin, 1S94), p.
92 (separate reprint from Report of the 588.
British Association for 1890). G W. Weston, in The Geographical
3 J. Macdonald, Religion and Myth Journal, .vii. (1896), p. 143; id., in
(London, 1893), p. 10. Jour>ial of the Anthropological Institute,
\
84
MAKING RAIN
CHAP
Victoria the rain-maker dipped a bunch of his own hair in
water, sucked out the water and squirted it westward, or he
twirled the ball round his head, making a spray like rain.1
Other Australian tribes employ human hair as a rain-charm
in other ways. In Western Australia the natives pluck hair
from their arm-pits and thighs and blow them in the direc-
tion from which they wish the rain to come. But if they
wish to prevent rain, they light a piece of sandal wood, and
beat the ground with the burning brand.2 When the rivers
were low and water scarce in Victoria, the wizard used to
place human hair in the stream, accompanying the act with
chants and gesticulation. But if he wished to make rain, he
dropped some human hair in the fire. Hair was never burnt
at other times for fear of causing a great fall of rain.3 The
Arab historian Makrisi describes a method of stopping rain
which is said to have been resorted to by a tribe of nomads
called Alqamar in Hadramaut. They cut a branch from a
certain tree in the desert, set it on fire, and then sprinkled
the burning brand with water. After that the vehemence of
the rain abated,4 just as the wrater vanished when it fell on the
glowing brand.
In the torrid climate of Queensland the ceremonies neces-
sary for wringing showers from the cloudless heaven are
naturally somewhat elaborate. A prominent part in them
is played by a " rain-stick." This is a thin piece of wood
about twenty inches long, to which three " rain-stones " and
hair cut from the beard have been fastened. The " rain-
stones " are pieces of white quartz-crystal. Three or four
such sticks may be used in the ceremony. About noon the
men who are to take part in it repair to a lonely pool, into
which one of them dives and fixes a hollow log vertically in
the mud. Then they all go into the water, and, forming a
xxvi. (1897), p. 30 ; id., Mountaineer-
ing and Exploration in the Japanese
Alps, p. 161. The ceremony is not
purely magical, for it is intended to
attract the attention of the powerful
spirit who has a small shrine on the
top of the mountain.
1 A. W. Howitt, " On Australian
Medicine-Men," Journal of the Anthro-
pological Institute, xvi. (1887), p. 35.
2 R. Salvado, Jll'/noires historiques
snr PAustralie (Paris, 1854), p. 262.
3 W. Stanbridge, " On the Abori-
gines of Victoria," Transactions of the
Ethnological Society of London, N.S., i.
(1 86 1), p. 300.
4 P. B. Noskowyj, Maqrizii de valle
Hadhramaiit libellus arabice editns et
illustratus (Bonn, 1866), p. 25 sq.
i MAKING RAIN 85
rough circle round the man in the middle, who holds the rain-
stick aloft, they begin stamping with their feet as well as
they can, and splashing the water with their hands from all
sides on the rain-stick. The stamping, which is accompanied
by singing, is sometimes a matter of difficulty, since the
water may be four feet deep or more. The singing over,
the man in the middle dives out of sight and attaches the
rain-stick to the hollow log under water. Then coming to
the surface, he quickly climbs on to the bank and spits out
on dry land the water which he imbibed in diving. Should
more than one of these rain-sticks have been prepared, the
ceremony is repeated with each in turn. While the men are
returning to camp they scratch the tops of their heads and
the inside of their shins from time to time with twigs ; if
they were to scratch themselves with their fingers alone, they
believe that the whole effect of the ceremony would be
spoiled. On reaching the camp they paint their faces, arms,
and chest with broad bands of gypsum. During the rest of
the day the process of scratching, accompanied by the song,
is repeated at intervals, and thus the performance comes to
a close. No woman may set eyes on the rain-stick or
witness the ceremony of its submergence ; but the wife of
the chief rain-maker is privileged to take part in the subse-
quent rite of scratching herself with a twig. When the rain
does come, the rain-stick is taken out of the water ; it has
done its work.1 At Roxburgh, in Queensland, the ceremony
is somewhat different. A white quartz-crystal which is to
serve as the rain-stone is obtained in the mountains and
crushed to powder. Next a tree is chosen of which the
stem runs up straight for a long way without any branches.
Against its trunk saplings from fifteen to twenty feet long
are then propped in a circle, so as to form a sort of shed like
a bell-tent, and in front of the shed an artificial pond is
made in the ground. The men, who have collected within
the shed, now come forth and, dancing and singing round
the pond, mimic the cries and antics of various aquatic birds
and animals, such as ducks and frogs. Meanwhile the women
are stationed some twenty yards or so away. When the men
1 W. E. Roth, Ethnological Studies land Aborigines (Brisbane and London,
among the North-West-Central Queens- 1897), p. 167.
86 MAKING RAIN chap.
have done pretending to be ducks, frogs, and so forth, they
march round the women in single file, throwing the pulverised
quartz-crystals over them. On their side the women hold
up shields, pieces of bark, and so on over their heads, mak-
ing believe that they are sheltering themselves from a heavy
shower of rain.1 Both these ceremonies are cases of mimetic
magic ; the splashing of the water over the rain-stick is
as clearly an imitation of a shower as the throwing of the
powdered quartz-crystal over the women.
The Dieri of Central Australia enact a somewhat similar
pantomime for the same purpose. In a dry season their lot
is a hard one. No fresh herbs or roots are to be had, and
as the parched earth yields no grass, the emus, reptiles, and
other creatures which generally furnish the natives with food
grow so lean and wizened as to be hardly worth eating. At
such a time of severe drought the Dieri, loudly lamenting the
impoverished state of the country and their own half-starved
condition, call upon the spirits of their remote ancestors, which
they call Mura Mura, to grant them power to make a heavy
rainfall. For they believe that the clouds are bodies in which
rain is generated by their own ceremonies or those of neigh-
bouring tribes, through the influence of the Mura Mura. The
way in which they set about drawing rain from the clouds is
this. A hole is dug about twelve feet long and eight or ten
broad, and over this hole a conical hut of logs and branches is
made. Two men, supposed to have received a special inspira-
tion from the Mura Mura, are bled by an old and influential
man with a sharp flint ; and the blood, drawn from their
arms below the elbow, is made to flow on the other men of
the tribe, who sit huddled together in the hut. At the same
time the two bleeding men throw handfuls of down about,
some of which adheres to the blood-stained bodies of their
comrades, while the rest floats in the air. The blood is
thought to represent the rain, and the down the clouds.
During the ceremony two large stones are placed in the
middle of the hut ; they stand for gathering clouds and
presage rain. Then the men who were bled carry away the
two stones for about ten or fifteen miles, and place them as
high as they can in the tallest tree. Meanwhile the other
1 W. E. Roth, op. cit. p. 1 68.
i MAKING RAIN 87
men gather gypsum, pound it fine, and throw it into a water-
hole. This the Mura Mura see, and at once they cause clouds
to appear in the sky. Lastly, the men, young and old,
surround the hut, and, stooping down, charge at it with their
heads, like so many rams. Thus they force their way
through it and reappear on the other side, repeating the
process till the hut is wrecked. In doing this they are for-
bidden to use their hands or arms ; but when the heavy logs
alone remain, they are allowed to pull them out with their
hands. " The piercing of the hut with their heads symbolises
the piercing of the clouds ; the fall of the hut, the fall of the
rain." 1 Obviously, too, the act of placing high up in trees
the two stones, which stand for clouds, is a way of making
the real clouds to mount up in the sky. The Dieri also
imagine that the foreskins taken from lads at circum-
cision have a great power of producing rain. Hence the
Great Council of the tribe always keeps a small stock of fore-
skins ready for use. They are carefully concealed, being
wrapt up in feathers with the fat of the wild dog and of
the carpet snake. A woman may not see such a parcel
opened on any account. When the ceremony is over, the
foreskin is buried, its virtue being exhausted. After the rains
have fallen, some of the tribe always undergo a surgical
operation, which consists in cutting the skin of their chest
and arms with a sharp flint. The wound is then tapped
with a flat stick to increase the flow of blood, and red
ochre is rubbed into it. Raised scars are thus produced.
The reason alleged by the natives for this practice is that
they are pleased with the rain, and that there is a connection
between the rain and the scars. Apparently the operation
is not very painful, for the patient laughs and jokes while it
is going on. Indeed, little children have been seen to crowd
round the operator and patiently take their turn ; then after
being operated on, they ran away, expanding their little
chests and singing for the rain to beat upon them. How-
ever, they were not so well pleased next clay, when they felt
1 S. Gason, "The Dieyerie Tribe," logical Institute, xx. (1891), p. 91 sq.
Native Tribes of South Australia, p. These writers speak of the Mura Mura
276 sqq. ; A. W. Howitt, " The Dieri as a single spirit ; Mr. Gason calls him
and other Kindred Tribes of Central the Good Spirit. But see above, p.
Australia," Journal of the Anthropo- 72, note.
88 MAKING RAIN chap.
their wounds stiff and sore.1 In Java, when rain is wanted,
two men will sometimes thrash each other with supple rods
till the blood flows down their backs ; the streaming blood
represents the rain, and no doubt is supposed to make it
fall on the ground.2
Among the Arunta tribe of Central Australia a celebrated
rain-maker resides at the present day in what is called by
the natives the Rain Country (Kartwia quatcha), a district
about fifty miles to the east of Alice Springs. He is the
head of a group of people who have the water for their
totem, and when he is about to engage in a ceremony for
the making of rain he summons other men of the water
totem from neighbouring groups to come and help him.
When all are assembled, they march into camp, painted with
red and yellow ochre and pipeclay, and wearing bunches of
eagle-hawk feathers on the crown and sides of the head.
At a signal from the rain-maker they all sit down in a line
and, folding their arms across their breasts, chant certain
words for a time. Then at another signal from the master
of the ceremonies they jump up and march in single file to
a spot some miles off, where they camp for the night. At
break of day they scatter in all directions to look for game,
which is then cooked and eaten ; but on no account may
any water be drunk, or the ceremony would fail. When
they have eaten, they adorn themselves again in a different
style from before, broad bands of white bird's down being
glued by means of human blood to their stomach, legs, arms,
and forehead. Meanwhile a special hut of boughs has been
made by some older men not far from the main camp. Its
floor is strewn with a thick layer of gum leaves to make it
soft, for a good deal of time has to be spent lying down
here. Close to the entrance of the hut a shallow trench,
some thirty yards long, is excavated in the ground. At
sunset the performers, arrayed in all the finery of white down,
march to the hut. On reaching it the young men go in
first and lie face downwards at the inner end, where they
have to stay till the ceremony is over ; none of them is
1 A. \V. Hewitt, op. cit. p. 92 sq. Mededeelingen van tuege het Nederland-
2 J. Kreemer, " Regenmaken, Oecl- sche Zeudelinggenootschap, xxx. (1886),
joeng, Tooverij onder de Javanen," p. 113.
i MAKING RAIN 89
allowed to quit it on any pretext. Meanwhile, outside
the hut the older men are busy decorating the rain-maker.
Hair girdles, covered with white down, are placed all over
his head, while his cheeks and forehead are painted with
pipeclay ; and two broad bands of white down pass across
the face, one over the eyebrows and the other over the nose.
The front of his body is adorned with a broad band of pipe-
clay fringed with white down, and rings of white down
encircle his arms. Thus decorated, with patches of bird's
down adhering by means of human blood to his hair and the
whole of his body, the disguised man is said to present a
spectacle which, once seen, can never be forgotten. He now
takes up a position close to the opening of the hut. Then
the old men sing a song, and when it is finished, the rain-
maker comes out of the hut and stalks slowly twice up and
down the shallow trench, quivering his body and legs in a
most extraordinary way, every nerve and fibre seeming to be
agitated. While he is thus engaged the young men, who
had been lying flat on their faces, get up and join the old
men in chanting a song with which the movements of the
rain-maker seem to accord. But as soon as he re-enters
the hut, the young men at once prostrate themselves again ;
for they must always be lying down when he is in the hut.
The performance is repeated at intervals during the night,
and the singing goes on with little intermission until, just
when the day is breaking, the rain-maker executes a final
quiver, which lasts longer than any of the others, and seems
to exhaust his remaining strength completely. Then he
declares the ceremony to be over, and at once the young
men jump to their feet and rush out of the hut, screaming
in imitation of the spur-winged plover. The cry is heard
by the men and women who have been left at the main camp,
and they take it up with weird effect.1
Although we cannot, perhaps, divine the meaning of all
the details of this curious ceremony, the analogy of the
Queensland and the Dieri ceremonies, described above,
suggests that we have here a rude attempt to represent the
1 F. J. Gillen, in Report of the Work pp. 177-179; Spencer and Gillen,
of the Horn Scientific Expedition to Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp.
Central Australia, part iv., Anthropo- 189-193.
logy (London and Melbourne, 1896),
9o MAKING RAIN chai\
gathering of rain-clouds and the other accompaniments of a
rising storm. The hut of branches, like the structure of logs
among Dieri, and perhaps the conical shed in Queensland,
may possibly stand for the vault of heaven, from which the
rain -clouds, represented by the chief actor in his quaint
costume of white down, come forth to move in ever-shifting
shapes across the sky, just as he struts quivering up and
down the trench. The other performers, also adorned with
bird's down, who burst from the tent with the cries of
plovers, probably imitate birds that are supposed to harbinger
or accompany rain.1 This interpretation is confirmed by
other ceremonies in which the performers definitely assimilate
themselves to the celestial or atmospheric phenomena which
they seek to produce. Thus in Mabuiag, a small island in
Torres Straits, when a wizard desired to make rain, he took
some bush or plant and painted himself black and white,
" All along same as clouds, black behind, white he go first."
He further put on a large woman's petticoat to signify
raining clouds. On the other hand, when he wished to
stop the rain, he put red paint on the crown of his head,
" possibly to represent the shining sun," and he inserted a
small ball of red paint in another part of his person. By
and by he expelled this ball, " Like breaking a cloud so
that sun he may shine." He then took some bushes and
leaves of the pandanus, mixed them together, and placed the
compound in the sea. Afterwards he removed them from
the water, dried them, and burnt them so that the smoke
went up, thereby typifying, as Professor Haddon was in-
formed, the evaporation and dispersal of the clouds.2 Again,
it is said that if a Malay woman puts upon her head an
inverted earthenware pan, and then, setting it upon the
ground, fills it with water and washes the cat in it till the
animal is nearly drowned, heavy rain will certainly follow.
In this performance the inverted pan is intended, as Mr. Skeat
was told, to symbolise the vault of heaven.3 Further, among
1 It is curious to find in Australia association in the popular mind,
the same association between the plover 2 A. C. Haddon, "The Ethnography
and rain which has procured for the of the Western Tribe of Torres Straits,"
bird its name in English, ¥rench( filuvier, Journal of the Anthropological Institute,
from the Latin pluvia), and German xix. (1890), p. 401.
{Regenpfeifer). Ornithologists seem 3 W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, p.
not to asree as to the reason for this 108.
i MAKING RAIN 91
the Nootkas of British Columbia twins are, believed to have
the power of making good or bad weather. They make rain
by painting their faces black and then washing them,1 which
may perhaps be taken to represent the rain dripping from
the dark clouds. Conversely, among the Angoni of Central
Africa there is a woman who stops rain by tying a strip of
white calico round her black head,2 probably in imitation of
the sky clearing after a heavy storm. Oddly enough, the
Baronga, on the shores of Delagoa in South-Eastern Africa,
ascribe to twins the same power of influencing the weather
which is attributed to them by the Nootkas far away on the
Pacific coast of North America. They bestow the name of
Tilo — that is, the sky — on a woman who has given birth to
twins, and the infants themselves are called the children of
the sky. Now when the storms which generally burst in
the months of September and October have been looked for
in vain, when a drought with its prospect of famine is
threatening, and all nature, scorched and burnt up by a sun
that has shone for six months from a cloudless sky, is
panting for the beneficent showers of the South-African
spring, the women perform ceremonies to bring down the
longed-for rain on the parched earth. Stripping themselves
of all their garments, they assume in their stead girdles and
head-dresses of grass, or short petticoats made of the leaves
of a particular sort of creeper. Thus attired, uttering
peculiar cries and singing ribald songs, they go about from
well to well, cleansing them of the mud and impurities which
have accumulated in them. The wells, it may be said, are
merely holes in the sand where a little turbid unwholesome
water stagnates. Further, the women must repair to the
house of one of their gossips who has given birth to twins,
and must drench her with water, which they carry in little
pitchers. Having done so they go on their way, shrieking
out their loose son^s and dancing immodest dances. No
man may see these leaf-clad women going their rounds. If
they meet a man, they maul him and thrust him aside.
When they have cleansed the wells, they must go and pour
1 Fr. Boas, in Sixth Report on the 2 British Central Africa Gazette, No.
North-Western Tribes of Canada, p. 40 S6 (vol. v. No. 6), 30th April 1S98,
(separate extract from the Report of the p. 3.
British Association for 1890).
92 MAKING RAIN chap.
water on the graves of their ancestors in the sacred grove.
It often happens, too, that at the bidding of the wizard they
go and pour water on the graves of twins. For they think
that the grave of a twin ought always to be moist, for which
reason twins are regularly buried near a lake. If all their
efforts to procure rain prove abortive, they will remember
that such and such a twin was buried in a dry place on the
side of a hill. " No wonder," says the wizard in such a case,
" that the sky is fiery. Take up his body and dig him a
grave on the shore of the lake." His orders are at once
obeyed, for this is supposed to be the only means of bringing
down the rain. The Swiss missionary who reports this
strange superstition has also suggested what appears to be
its true explanation. He points out that as the mother of
twins is called by the Baronga " the sky," they probably
think that to pour water on her is equivalent to pouring
water on the sky itself; and if water be poured on the sky,
it will of course drip through it, as through the nozzle of a
gigantic watering-pot, and fall on the earth beneath. A
slight extension of the same train of reasoning explains
why the desired result is believed to be expedited by
drenching the graves of twins, who are the Children of the
Sky.1
These facts strongly support an interpretation which
Professor Oldenberg has given of the rules to be observed
by a Brahman who would learn a particular hymn of the
ancient Indian collection known as the Samaveda. The
hymn, which bears the name of the Sakvarl song, was
believed to embody the might of Indra's weapon, the
thunderbolt ; and hence, on account of the dreadful and
dangerous potency with which it was thus charged, the bold
student who essayed to master it had to be isolated from his
fellow-men, and to retire from the village into the forest. Here
for a space of time, which might vary, according to different
doctors of the law, from one to twelve years, he had to
observe certain rules of life, among which were the following.
Thrice a day he had to touch water ; he must wear black
1 H. A. Tunod, Les Ba-ronga (Neu- the Sky "' is obscure. Are they supposed
chatel, 1898), pp. 412, 416 sqq. The in some mysterious way to stand for the
reason for callin" twins "Children of sun and moon?
i MAKING RAIN 93
garments and eat black food ; when it rained, he might not
seek the shelter of a roof, but had to sit down under the
dripping sky and say to it, "Water is the Sakvarl song";
when the lightning flashed he said, " That is like the Sakvarl
song"; when the thunder pealed, he said, "The Great One
is making a great noise." He might never cross a running
stream without touching water ; he might never set foot on
a ship unless his life were in danger, and even then he must
be sure to touch water when he went on board ; " for in
water," so ran the saying, " lies the virtue of the Sakvarl
song." When at last he was allowed to learn the song
itself, he had to dip his hands in a vessel of water in which
plants of all sorts had been placed. If a man walked in the
way of all these precepts, the rain-god Parjanya, it was said,
would send rain at the wish of that man. It is clear, as
Professor Oldenberg well points out, that "all these rules are
intended to bring the Brahman into union with water, to
make him, as it were, an ally of the water powers, and to
guard him against their hostility. The black garments and
the black food have the same significance ; no one will doubt
that they refer to the rain-clouds when he remembers that a
black victim is sacrificed to procure rain ; 'it is black, for
such is the nature of rain.' In respect of another rain-charm
it is said plainly, ' He puts on a black garment edged with
black, for such is the nature of rain.' We may therefore
assume that here in the circle of ideas and ordinances of the
Vedic schools there have been preserved magical practices of
the most remote antiquity, which were intended to prepare
the rain-maker for his office and dedicate him to it." l
It is interesting to observe that where an opposite result
is desired, primitive logic enjoins the weather-doctor to
observe precisely opposite rules of conduct. In the tropical
island of Java, where the rich vegetation attests the abun-
dance of the rainfall, ceremonies for the making of rain are
unknown, but ceremonies for the prevention of it are not
uncommon. When a man is about to give a great feast in
the rainy season and has invited many people, he goes to a
weather-doctor and asks him to " prop up the clouds that
may be lowering." If the doctor consents to exert his
1 H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, p. 420 sq.
94 MAKING RAIN chap.
professional powers, he begins to regulate his behaviour by
certain rules as soon as his customer has departed. He
must observe a fast, and may neither drink nor bathe ; what
little he eats must be eaten dry, and in no case may he touch
water. The host, on his side, and his servants, both male
and female, must neither wash clothes nor bathe so lone as
the feast lasts, and they have all during its continuance to
observe strict chastity. The doctor seats himself on a new
mat in his bedroom, and before a small oil lamp he murmurs,
shortly before the feast takes place, the following prayer or
incantation: "Grandfather and Grandmother Sroekoel" (the
name seems to be taken at random ; others are sometimes
used), " return to your country. Akkemat is your country.
Put down your water-cask, close it properly, that not a drop
may fall out." While he utters this prayer the sorcerer looks
upwards, burning incense the while.1
The reader will observe how exactly the Javanese obser-
vances, which are intended to prevent rain, form the antithesis
of the Indian observances, which aim at producing it. The
Indian sage is commanded to touch water thrice a day
regularly as well as on various special occasions ; the
Javanese wizard must not touch it at all. The Indian lives
out in the forest, and even when it rains he must not take
shelter ; the Javanese sits snugly in his own house on a new
mat. The one signifies his sympathy with water by receiving
the rain on his person and speaking of it respectfully; the
other lights a lamp, burns incense, and bids the water-powers
begone and not suffer a drop to fall. Yet the principle on
which both act is the same ; each of them, by a sort of
childish make-believe, identifies himself with the phenomenon
which he desires to produce. It is the old fallacy that the
effect resembles its cause : if you would make wet weather,
you must be wet ; if you would make drought, you must
be dry.
In South-Eastern Europe at the present day ceremonies
are observed for the purpose of rain-making which not only
rest on the same general train of thought as the preceding,
but even in their details resemble the ceremonies practised
1 G. G. Batten, Glimpses of the Eastern Archipelago (Singapore, 1S94), p.
6S sq.
i MAKING RAIN 95
with the same intention by the Baronga of Delagoa Bay.
Among the Greeks of Thessaly and Macedonia, when a
drought has lasted a long time, it is customary to send a
procession of children round to all the wells and springs of
the neighbourhood. At the head of the procession walks a
girl adorned with flowers, whom her companions drench with
water at every halting-place, while they sing an invocation,
of which the following is part : —
" Perperia, all fresh bedewed,
Freshen all the neighbourhood ;
By the woods, on the highway,
As thou goest, to God now pray:
O my God, upon the plain,
Send thou us a still, small rain ;
That the fields may fruitful be,
And vines in blossom we may see ;
That the grain be full and sound,
And wealthy grow the folks around." x
In time of drought the Servians strip a girl to her skin and
clothe her from head to foot in grass, herbs, and flowers,
even her face being hidden behind a veil of living green.
Thus disguised she is called the Dodola, and goes through
the village with a troop of girls. They stop before every
house ; the Dodola keeps turning herself round and dancing,
while the other girls form a ring about her singing one of the
Dodola songs, and the housewife pours a pail of water over
her. One of the songs they sing runs thus : —
"We go through the village ;
The clouds go in the sky;
We go faster,
Faster go the clouds ;
They have overtaken us,
And wetted the corn and the vine."
A similar custom is observed in Greece, Bulgaria, and
Roumania.2 In such customs the leaf-clad girl appears to
personify vegetation, and the drenching of her with water is
certainly an imitation of rain. The words of the last sone,
1 Lucy M. J. Garnett, The Women i. 493 sq. ; W. Schmidt, Dasjakrund
of Turkey and their Folklore : The seine Tage i?i Meinung und Branch
Christian Women, p. 123^. der Rom'anen Siebenbiirgens, p. 17; E.
2 \\ . Mannhardt, Baumkultus, p. Gerard, The Land beyond the Forest,
329^.; Grinm, Deutsche Mythologies ii. 13; Folklore, i. {1890), p. 520.
96
MAKING RAIN
CHAP.
however, taken in connection with the constant movement
which the chief actress in the performance seems expected
to keep up, points to some comparison of the girl or her
companions to clouds moving through the sky. This again
reminds us of the odd quivering movement kept up by the
Australian rain-maker, who, in his disguise of white down,
may perhaps represent a cloud.1
Bathing is practised as a rain-charm in some parts of
Southern and Western Russia. Sometimes after service in
church the priest in his robes has been thrown down on the
ground and drenched with water by his parishioners. Some-
times it is the women who, without stripping off their
clothes, bathe in crowds on the day of St. John the Baptist,
while they dip in the water a figure made of branches,
grass, and herbs, which is supposed to represent the saint.2
In Kursk, a province of Southern Russia, when rain is much
wanted, the women seize a passing stranger and throw him
into the river, or souse him from head to foot.3 Later on
we shall see that a passing stranger is often taken for a
deity or the personification of some natural power. In Mina-
hassa, a province of North Celebes, the priest bathes as a rain-
charm.4 In Kumaon, a district of North- West India, when
rain fails they sink a Brahman up to his lips in a tank or
pond, where he repeats the name of a god of rain for a day
or two. When this rite is duly performed, rain is sure to
fall.5 For the same purpose village girls in the Punjaub
will pour a solution of cow-dung in water upon an old
woman who happens to pass ; or they will make her sit
down under the roof-spout of a house and get a wetting
when it rains.6 In the Solok district of Sumatra, when a
1 See above, p. 89. This perpetual
turning or whirling movement is re-
quired of the actors in other European
ceremonies of a superstitious character.
See below, pp. 208, 213, 214, 219. I am
far from feeling sure that the explana-
tion of it suggested in the text is the true
one. But I do not remember to have
met with any other.
2 J. Polek, " Regenzauber in Ost-
europa," Zeitschrift des Vereins fur
Vblkskunde, iii. (1893), p. S5. For
the bathing of the priest compare
W. Mannhardt, Baitmkultus, p. 331,
note 2.
3 W. Mannhardt, Baumkultus, p.
33 1-
4 J. G. F. Riedel, " De Minahasa
in 1825," Tijdschrift voor Indische
Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, xviii. 524.
0 North Indian Notes and Queries,
iii. p. 134, § 285.
0 W. Crook e, Introduction to the
Popular Religion and Folklore of
Northern India (Allahabad, 1894), p.
44.
i MAKING RAIN 97
drought has lasted a long time, a number of half-naked
women take a half-witted man to a river; and there
besprinkle him with water as a means of compelling the
rain to fall.1 In some parts of Bengal, when drought
threatens the country, troops of children of all ages go from
house to house and roll and tumble in puddles which have
been prepared for the purpose by pouring water into the
courtyards. This is supposed to bring down rain. Again,
in Dubrajpur, a village in the Birbhum district of Bengal,
when rain has been looked for in vain, people will throw
dirt or filth on the houses of their neighbours, who abuse
them for doing so. Or they drench the lame, the halt, the
blind, and other infirm persons, and are reviled for their
pains by the victims. This vituperation is believed to
bring about the desired result by drawing down showers on
the parched earth.2 Similarly, in the Shahpur district of
Bengal it is said to be customary in time of drought to spill
a pot of filth on the threshold of a notorious old shrew, in
order that the fluent stream of foul language in which she
vents her feelings may accelerate the lingering rain.3 In
these latter customs the means adopted for bringing about
the desired result appears to be not so much imitative magic
as the beneficent virtue which, curiously enough, is often
attributed to curses and maledictions.4
1 J. L. van der Toorn, " Het ani- angry with them and curses them,
misme bij den Minangkabauer der Hence before a fisherman goes out to
Padagnsche Bovenlanden," Bijdragen fish, he will play a rough practical
tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van joke on a comrade in order to be
Nederlandsch Indie, xxxix. (1S90), p. abused and execrated by him. The
93- more the latter storms and curses, the
2 Sarat Chandra Mitra, " On Some better the other is pleased ; every curse
Ceremonies forproducing Rain, "Journal brings at least three fish into his net.
of the Anthropological Society of Bom- See Boecler-Kreutzwald, Der Ehsten
bay, iii. (1893), pp. 25, 27; id., \n North abergldubische Gebrduche, Weisen und
Indian Notes and Queries, v. p. 136, Gewohnheiten, p. 90 sq. In India
§ 373- " much virtue is ascribed to abuse in
3 Pan jab Notes and Queries, i. p. 102, this district of Behar. It is supposed
§ 79 !• to bring good luck in some cases. On
4 When a Greek sower sowed occasion of marriages, people who
cummin he had to curse and swear accompany the marriage procession to
all the time, otherwise the crop would the bride's house are often vilely
not turn out well (Theophrastus, abused by the women folk of the
Histor. Plant, viii. 3 ; Plutarch, bride's family, in the belief that it will
Quaest. Conviv. vii. 2. 2). Esthonian lead on to the good fortune of the
fishermen believe that they never have newly-married couple. In the same
such good luck as when some one is way on the occasion of the Jamadwitiya
VOL. I H
98 MAKING RAIN chap.
Women are sometimes supposed to be able to make
rain by ploughing, or pretending to plough. Thus in the
Caucasian province of Georgia, when a drought has lasted
long, marriageable girls are yoked in couples with an ox-
yoke on their shoulders, a priest holds the reins, and thus
harnessed they wade through rivers, puddles, and marshes,
praying, screaming, weeping, and laughing.1 In a district
of Transylvania, when the ground is parched with drought,
some girls strip themselves naked, and, led by an older
woman, who is also naked, they steal a harrow and carry it
across the field to a brook, where they set it afloat. Next
they sit on the harrow and keep a tiny flame burning on
each corner of it for an hour. Then they leave the harrow
in the water and go home." A similar rain-charm is resorted
to in some parts of India ; naked women drag a plough
across a field by night, while the men keep carefully out
of the way, for their presence would break the spell.3 As
performed at Chunar in Bengal on the twenty-fourth of July
I 89 1 the ceremony was this. Between nine and ten in the
evening a barber's wife went from door to door and invited
the women to engage in ploughing. They all assembled in
a field from which men were excluded. Three women of a
husbandman's family then stripped themselves naked ; two
of them were yoked like oxen to the plough, while the third
held the handle. They next began to imitate the operation
Day in Behar, . . . brothers are ease his conscience and rid himself of
abused by sisters to their heart's con- his burden by robbing a neighbour's
tent, and this is done under the im- orchard or cutting down his plants. In
pression that it will prolong the lives these cases, however, he sometimes
of the brothers and bring good luck to gets more than he bargained for, since
them " (Sarat Chandra Mitra in Jour- the person whose premises he invades
nal of the Anthropological Society of with these virtuous intentions does not
Bombay, ii. 59S si/.). In the same always stop short at bad language,
district of India if any one is rendered See Sarat Chandra Mitra, loc. cit. ;
sinful by looking at the "moon of ill id., in Journal of the Royal Asiatic
omen " (on the fourth day of the Society of Great Britain and Ireland,
waxing moon in the month Bhadra, N.S., xxix. (1897), p. 482.
corresponding to August - September) 1 j_ Reinegg, Beschreilmng des Kou-
he is absolved from all sin if he con- kasus ii. 114
trives to get reviled by somebody. In
order to procure absolution in this odd r ' Mannhardt, Baumkultus, p. 553 ;
fashion he throws brickbats into a neigh- ?erard> 7 he Lami bey°nd tke Foreit>
hour's house, and the result seldom fails u" 4°-
to fulfil his hopes. For a similar reason 3 Panjab Notes and Queries, iii.
in Bengal the sin-laden man will seek to pp. 41, 115, §§ 173, 513.
i MAKING RAIN 99
of ploughing. The one who held the plough cried out,
" 0 mother earth ! bring parched grain, water, and chaff.
Our stomachs are breaking to pieces from hunger and
thirst." Then the landlord and accountant approached
them and laid down some grain, water, and chaff in the
field. After that the women dressed and returned home.
" By the grace of God," adds the gentleman who reports the
ceremony, " the weather changed almost immediately, and
we had a good shower."1 Sometimes as they draw the
plough the women sing a hymn to Vishnu, in which they
seek to enlist his sympathy by enumerating the ills which
the people are suffering from the want of rain. In some
cases they discharge volleys of abuse at the village officials,
and even at the landlord, whom they compel to drag the
plough.2 These ceremonies are all the more remarkable
because in ordinary circumstances Hindoo women never
engage in agricultural operations like ploughing and har-
rowing. Yet in drought it seems to be women of the
highest or Brahman caste who are chosen to perform what at
other times would be regarded as a menial and degrading
task. Occasionally, when hesitation is felt at subjecting Brah-
man ladies to this indignity, they are allowed to get off by
merely touching the plough early in the morning, before
people are astir ; the real work is afterwards done by the
ploughmen.3
Sometimes the rain-charm operates through the dead.
Thus in New Caledonia the rain-makers blackened them-
1 North Indian Notes and Queries, Mr. E. S. Haitland suggests that such
i. p. 210, § 1 161. customs furnish the key to the legend
a o r>\. j .r, ccr^ -l °f Lady Godiva (Folklore, i. (1890),
2 Sarat Chandra Mitra, "On the _ „„, ' » c„„L r *x. t I c
u B - ,, -r, , '. ,,, , P- 223 sqq.). Some of the features of
Har l'araun, or the .Kenan Women s ,i,a „„,„,„ „■„ ,1, 1 t .» , ,
„ , ' , . „ . „ r the ceremonies, though not the plough-
Ceremony for producing Rain, Journal •„ „„ „ ■ ? , r ,. &,
,., J , r , . .. ba . ' J, ~ . ing, reappear in a rain-charm practised
of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great v., *i, * V> -v. • r r> f tL
d u ■ j t t .vP • / o . by the Rajbansis of Bengal. The
Britain and Ireland, N.S.,xxix. (1807), „'„ 1 . ■ r TT ,
0 ■ , • r , / , women make two images of Hudum
pp. 471-464; id. , in Journal of the r»»„ * „r a j j
« ,1 j. 1 ■ 1 <■ • , r r, 1 ■ ^eo out °f mud or cow-dung, and
Anthropological Society of Bombay, iv. car them intQ th ^
No. 7 (1898), pp. 384-388. night_ There /hey strip themsdv/s
3 Sarat Chandra Mitra, " On some naked, and dance round the images
Ceremonies for producing Rain, "Journal singing obscene songs. See H. H.
of the Anthropological Society of Bom- Risley, The Tribes and Castes of
bay, iii. 25. On these Indian rain- Bengal: Ethnographic Glossary (Cal-
charms compare W. Crooke, Intro- cutta, 1891-92), i. 49S. We have seen
duction to the Popular Religion and (p. 91) that lewd songs form part of an
Folklore of Northern India, p. 41 sqq. African rain-charm.
ioo MAKING RAIN chap.
selves all over, dug up a dead body, took the bones to a
cave, jointed them, and hung the skeleton over some taro
leaves. Water was poured over the skeleton to run down
on the leaves. They believed that the soul of the deceased
took up the water, converted it into rain, and showered it
down again.1 In Russia, if common report may be believed,
it is not long since the peasants of any district that chanced
to be afflicted with drought used to dig up the corpse of
some one who had drunk himself to death and sink it in the
nearest swamp or lake, fully persuaded that this would
ensure the fall of the needed rain. About twenty years ago
the prospect of a bad harvest, caused by a prolonged drought,
induced the inhabitants of a village in the Tarashchansk
district to dig up the body of a Raskolnik, or Dissenter,
who had died in the preceding December. Some of the
party beat the corpse, or what was left of it, about the head,
exclaiming, " Give us rain ! " while others poured water on
it through a sieve.2 Here the pouring of water through a
sieve seems plainly an imitation of a shower, and reminds us
of the manner in which Strepsiades in Aristophanes imagined
that rain was made by Zeus.8 We have seen that the Baronga
of Delagoa Bay drench the tombs of their ancestors, especially
the tombs of twins, as a rain-charm.4 Among some of the
Indian tribes in the region of the Orinoco it was customary
for the relations of a deceased person to disinter his bones
a year after burial, burn them, and scatter the ashes to the
winds, because they believed that the ashes were changed
into rain, which the dead man sent in return for his obse-
quies.5 The Chinese are convinced that when human bodies
remain unburied, the souls of their late owners feel the dis-
comfort of rain, just as living men would do if they were
exposed without shelter to the inclemency of the weather.
These wretched souls, therefore, do all in their power to
prevent the rain from falling, and often their efforts are only
too successful. Then drought ensues, the most dreaded of
all calamities in China, because bad harvests, dearth, and
1 G. Turner, Samoa, p. 345 sq. 4 Above, p. 91 sq.
„ , „ _ , . „ , 5 A. Caulin, Historia Coro-graphica
2 \\. R. S. Ralston, Mie Soups of . , ,■ , , ^ , j
u7 „ . „ . . ° J natural v evangelica dela Jvueva Anda-
the Russian Feople, p. 425 sq. , . n f . ? , „ „
1 l J lucia, Provinaas dc Cumana, uuayana
3 Aristophanes, Clouds, 373. y Vertimtes del Rio Orinoco, p. 92.
i MAKING RAIN 101
famine follow in its train. Hence it has been a common
practice of the Chinese authorities in time of drought to
inter the dry bones of the unburied dead for the purpose of
putting an end to the scourge and conjuring down the
rain.1
Animals, again, often play an important part in these
weather-charms. An ancient Indian mode of making rain
was to throw an otter into the water.2 When some of the
Blackfoot Indians were at war in summer and wished to
bring on a tempest, they would take a kit-fox skin and rub
it with dirt and water, which never failed to be followed
by a storm of rain.3 Often in order to give effect to
the charm the animal must be black. Thus an ancient
Indian way of bringing on rain was to set a black horse
with his face to the west and rub him with a black cloth till
he neighed.4 To procure rain the Peruvian Indians used to
set a black sheep in a field, poured cJiica over it, and gave
the animal nothing to eat until rain fell.5 Once when a
drought lasting five months had burnt up their pastures and
withered the corn, the Caffres of Natal had recourse to a
famous witch, who promised to procure rain without delay.
A black sheep having been produced, an incision was made
in the animal near the shoulder and the gall taken out.
Part of this the witch rubbed over her own person, part she
drank, part was mixed with medicine. Some of the medicine
was then rubbed on her body ; the rest of it, attached to a
stick, was fixed in the fence of a calves' pen. The woman next
harangued the clouds. When the sheep was to be cooked,
a new fire was procured by the friction of fire-sticks ; in
ordinary circumstances a brand would have been taken from
one of the huts.0 Among the Wambugwe, a Bantu people
of Eastern Africa, when the sorcerer desires to make rain he
takes a black sheep and a black calf in bright sunshine, and
has them placed upon the roof of the large common hut in
1 J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious und Zauber (Strasburg, 1897), P- I2°-
System of China, iii. 918 sag. ~° Acosta, History of the Indies, bk.
- H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des v. ch. xxviii. (vol. ii. p. 376, Hakluyt
Veda, p. 507. Society).
3 G. B. Grinnell, Blackfoot Lodge « J. Shooter, The Kafirs of Natal
Tales, p. 262. and the Zulu Country (London, 1S57),
4 A. Hillebrandt, Vedische Offer p. 212 sqq.
102 MAKING RAIN chap.
which the people live together. Then he slits open the
stomachs of the animals and scatters their contents in all
directions. After that he pours water and medicine into a
vessel ; if the charm has succeeded, the water boils up and
rain follows. On the other hand, if the sorcerer wishes to
prevent rain from falling, he withdraws into the interior of
the hut, and there heats a rock-crystal in a calabash.1 In a
district of Sumatra, in order to procure rain, all the women of
the village, scantily clad, go to the river, wade into it, and
splash each other with the water. A black cat is thrown into
the stream and made to swim about for a while, then allowed
to escape to the bank, pursued by the splashing of the women.2
The Garos of Assam offer a black goat on the top of a very
high mountain in time of drought.3 Among the Matabele
the rain-charm employed by sorcerers was made from the
blood and gall of a black ox.4 In all these cases the
colour of the animal is part of the charm ; being black, it
will darken the sky with rain -clouds. So the Bechuanas
burn the stomach of an ox at evening, because they say,
" The black smoke will gather the clouds and cause the
rain to come." l The Timorese sacrifice a black pig to
the Earth-goddess for rain, a white or red one to the Sun-
god for sunshine.6 Among the high mountains of Japan
there is a district in which, if rain has not fallen for a long
time, a party of villagers goes in procession to the bed of a
mountain torrent, headed by a priest, who leads a black dog.
At the chosen spot they tether the beast to a stone, and
make it a target for their bullets and arrows. When its
life-blood bespatters the rocks, the peasants throw down
their weapons and lift up their voices in supplication to the
1 O. Baumann, Durch Massailand 5 Folklore Journal, edited by the
zur Nilquelle (Berlin, 1894), p. 188. Working Committee of the South African
2 A. L. van Hasselt, Volksbeschrij- Folklore Society, i. (1879), P- 34-
vingvan Midden-Sumatra, p. 320 so. ; c J. S. G. Gramberg, " Eene maand
J. L. van der Toorn, " Het animisme in de binnenlanden van Timor," Ver-
bij den Minangkabauer der Padagnsche handelingen van het Bataviaasch Ge-
Bovenlanden," Bijdragen tot de Taal- nootschap van Kunsten e?i Wetenschap-
Land-enVolkenkundevanNederlandsch pen, xxxvi. p. 209; H. Zondervan,
hidie, xxxix. (1890), p. 93. "Timor en de Timoreezen," Tijdsclwift
3 Dalton, Etlmology of Bengal, p. van het JVederlandsch Aardri/kskundig
88. Genootsckap, Tweede Serie, v. (1888),
4 L. Decle, Three Years in Savage Afdeeling, meer uitgebreide artikelen,
Africa (London, 1898), p. 154. p. 402 sq.
i MAKING RAIN 103
dragon divinity of the stream, exhorting him to send down
forthwith a shower to cleanse the spot from its defilement.
Custom has prescribed that on these occasions the colour of
the victim shall be black, as an emblem of the wished-for
rain-clouds. But if fine weather is wanted, the victim must
be white, without a spot.1
The intimate association of frogs and toads with water
has earned for these creatures a widespread reputation as
custodians of rain ; and hence they often play a part in
charms designed to draw needed showers from the sky.
Some of the Indians of the Orinoco held the toad to be the
god or lord of the waters, and for that reason feared to kill
the creature, even when they were ordered to do so. They
have been known to keep frogs under a pot and to beat
them with rods when there was a drought.2 It is said that
the Aymara Indians of Peru and Bolivia often make little
images of frogs and other aquatic animals and place them
on the tops of the hills as a means of bringing down rain.3
In some parts of South-Eastern Australia, where the rainfall
is apt to be excessive, the natives feared to injure Tidelek,
the frog, or Bluk, the bull-frog, because they were said to be
full of water instead of intestines, and great rains would
follow if one of them were killed. The frog family was
often referred to as Bunjil Willung or Mr. Rain. A tradi-
tion ran that once upon a time long ago the frog drank up
all the water in the lakes and rivers, and then sat in the dry
1 W. Weston, Mountaineering and ii. 237, note. On the supposed rela-
Exploration in the Japanese Alps tion of the frog or toad to water in
(London, 1896), p. 162 sq. ; id., in America, see further E. J. Payne,
Journal oj the Anthropological Insti- History of the New World called
tute, xxvi. (1897), p. 30 ; id., in The America, i. 420 sq., 425 sqq. He
Geographical Journal, vii. (1896), p. observes that "throughout the New
143 sq. World, from Florida to Chile, the
2 A. Caulin, Historia Coro-graphica w«rshiP of the frog or toad, as the
natural y evangelica dela Nueva Anda- offsPnng of water and the symbol of
lucia, Provincias de Cumana, Gttayana the water-spirit, accompanied the culti-
y Vertientes del Rio Orinoco, p. 96; vatl0n of malze " <P- 425)- A species
Colombia, being a geographical, etc., of water toad ls called b^ the Arau"
account of the country, i. 642 to • canians of Chili genco, " which signifies
A. Bastian, Die Culturldnder des alien !ord of the water' as the>' believe that
Amerika ii ">i6 ^ watches over the preservation and
contributes to the salubrity of the
3 D. Forbes, "On the Aymara waters" (J. I. Molina, Geographical.
Indians of Bolivia and Peru," Journal Natural, and Civil History of Chili,
of the Ethnological Society of London, London, 1809, i. 179).
104 MAKING RAIN chap.
reed beds swollen to an enormous size, saying, " Bluk !
bluk ! " in a deep gurgling voice. All the other animals
wandered about gaping and gasping for a drop of moisture,
but rinding none, they agreed that they must all die of
thirst unless they could contrive to make the frog laugh.
So they tried one after the other, but for a long time in
vain. The red-headed grey cockatoos bobbed their heads
and screeched their funniest jokes. But the frog did not so
much as look their way. He just said, " Bluk ! bluk ! " and
continued to contemplate the sky with an air of deep abstrac-
tion. The crows performed in their best style, and the sea-
trout danced on his tail, but all to no purpose. At last the
conger eel and his relations, hung round with lake grass and
gay sea-weed, reared themselves on their tails and pranced
round the fire. This was too much for the frog. He opened
his mouth and laughed till the water ran out and the lakes
and streams were full once more.1 We have seen that some
of the Queensland aborigines imitate the movements and
cries of frogs as part of a rain-charm.2 The Thompson
River Indians of British Columbia and some people in
Europe think that to kill a frog brings on rain.3 In
Kumaon, a district of North-Western India, one way of
bringing on rain when it is needed is to hang a frog with its
mouth up on a tall bamboo or on a tree for a day or two.
The notion is that the god of rain, seeing the creature in
trouble, will take pity on it and send the rain.4 Beliefs like
these might easily develop into a worship of frogs regarded
as personifying the powers of water and rain. In the Rig
Veda there is a hymn about frogs which appears to be sub-
stantially a rain-charm.5 The Newars, the aboriginal inhabit-
ants of Nepaul, worship the frog as a creature associated
with the demi-god Nagas in the production and control of
1 Mary E. B. Hovvitt, Folklore and A. Kuhn, Sago:, Gcbrduche und
Legends of some Victorian Tribes (in Mdrchen aits Westfalen, ii. p. 80,
manuscript). The story is told in an § 244 ; Gerard, Tlie Land beyond the
abridged form by Mr. A. W. Howitt Forest, ii. 13.
{Journ. Anthrop. Inst, xviii. (1889), 4 North Indlan No(cs and Querie^
p' i\T]' « iii. P. 134, § 285.
2 Above, p. 85. r of * 3
3 J. Teit, "The Thompson Indians ° M. Bloomfield, "On the ' Frog-
of British Columbia," Memoirs of the hymn,' Rig Veda, vii. 103," Journal
American Museum of Natural History, of the American Oriental Society, xvii.
vol. ii. part iv. (April 1900), p. 346; (1896), pp. 173-179.
i MAKING RAIN 105
rain and the water-supply, on which the welfare of the crops
depends. A sacred character is attributed to the little
animal, and every care is taken not to molest or injure it.
The worship of the frog is performed on the seventh day
of the month Kartik (October), usually at a pool which is
known to be frequented by frogs, although it is not essential
to the efficacy of the rite that a frog should be actually seen
at the time. After carefully washing his face and hands, the
priest takes five brazen bowls and places in them five separate
offerings, namely, rice, flowers, milk and vermilion, ghee and
incense, and water. Lighting the pile of ghee and incense, the
priest says, " Hail, Paremesvara Bhuminatha! I pray you receive
these offerings and send us timely rain, and bless our crops ! " l
Among some tribes of South Africa, when too much rain
falls, the wizard, accompanied by a large crowd, repairs to
the house of a family where there has been no death for a
very long time, and there he burns the skin of a coney. As
it burns he shouts, " The rabbit is burning," and the cry is
taken up by the whole crowd, who continue shouting till they
are exhausted.2 This no doubt is supposed to stop the rain.
Equally effective is a method adopted by gypsies in Austria.
When the rain has continued to pour steadily for a long time,
to the great discomfort of these homeless vagrants, the men of
the band assemble at a river and divide themselves into two
parties. Some of them cut branches with which to make a
raft, while the others collect hazel leaves and cover the raft
with them. A witch thereupon lays a dried serpent, wrapt
in white rags, on the raft, which is then carried by several
men to the river. Women are not allowed to be present at
this part of the ceremony. While the procession moves
towards the river, the witch marches behind the raft singing
a song, of which the burden is a statement that gypsies do
not like water, and have no urgent need of serpents' milk,
coupled with the expression of a hope that the serpent may
see his way to swallow the water, that he may run to his
1 A. L. Waddell, " Frog- Worship given to all the Newar divinities,
among the Newars," The Indian Anti- 2 J. Macdonald, "Manners, Customs,
?uary,xxii. (1893), pp. 292-294. The Superstitions, and Religions of South
title Bhuminatha, "Lord or Protector African Tribes," Jottmal of the All-
ot the Soil," is specially reserved for thropological Institute, xix. (1S90), p.
the frog. The title Paremesvara is 295.
106 MAKING RAIN chap.
mother and drink milk from her breasts, and that the sun
may shine out, bringing back mirth and jollity to gypsy
hearts. Transylvanian gypsies will sometimes expose the
dried carcass of a serpent to the pouring rain, " in order that
the serpent may convince himself of the inclemency of the
weather, and so grant the people's wish." 1
In this last example an attempt is made to improve the1
weather by subjecting the being who controls it to some dis-
comfort. Similarly, in Muzaffarnagar, a town of the Pun-
jaub, when the rains are excessive, the people draw a figure
of a certain Muni or Rishi Agastya on a loin-cloth and put
it out in the rain, or they paint his figure on the outside of
the house and let the rain wash it off. This Muni or Rishi
Agastya is a great personage in the native folklore, and
enjoys the reputation of being able to stop the rain. It is
supposed that he will exercise his power as soon as he is
thus made to feel in effigy the misery of wet weather.2 On
the other hand, when rain is wanted at Chhatarpur, in
the Madras Presidency, they paint two figures with their
legs up and their heads down on a wall that faces east ;
one of the figures represents Indra, the other Megha Raja,
the lord of rain. They think that in this uncomfortable
position these powerful beings will soon be glad to send
the much -needed showers.3 In a Japanese village, when
the guardian divinity had long been deaf to the peasants'
prayers for rain, they at last threw down his^ image and,
with curses loud and long, hurled it head foremost into
a stinking rice-field. " There," they said, " you may stay
yourself for a while, to see how you will feel after a few
days' scorching in this broiling sun that is burning the
life from our cracking fields." 4 In the like circum-
stances the Feloupes of Senegambia cast down their
fetishes and drag them about the fields, cursing them till
rain falls.5 The Chinese make a huge dragon of paper or
wood to represent the rain-god, and carry it about in pro-
1 H. von Wlislocki, Volksglaube 3 W. Crooke, op. cii. p. 44.
und religioser Branch der Zigeuner 4 W. Weston, Mountaineering and
(Miinster i. W., 1891), p. 64 sq. Exploration in the Japatiese Alps (Lon-
2 W. Crooke, An Introduction to don, 1896), p. 162.
the Popular Religion and Folklore of 5 Berenger - Feraud, les peuplad.es
Northern India, p. 46. de la Sint!gambie, p. 291.
i MAKING RAIN 107
cession ; but if no rain follows, the mock dragon is execrated
and torn in pieces.1 In Okunomura, a Japanese village not
far from Tokio, when rain is wanted, an artificial dragon is
made out of straw, reeds, bamboos, and magnolia leaves.
Preceded by a Shinto priest, attended by men carrying
paper flags, and followed by others beating a big drum, the
dragon is carried in procession from the Buddhist temple
and finally thrown into a waterfall.2 About the year I 7 1 o
the island of Tsong-ming, which belongs to the province of
Nanking, was afflicted with a drought. The viceroy of the
province, after the usual attempts to soften the heart of the
local deity by burning incense -sticks had been made in
vain, sent word to the idol that if rain did not fall by such
and such a day, he would have him turned out of the
city and his temple razed to the ground. The threat
had no effect on the obdurate divinity ; the day of grace
came and went, and yet not a drop of rain fell. Then the
indignant viceroy forbade the people to make any more
offerings at the shrine of this unfeeling deity, and commanded
that the temple should be shut up and seals placed on the
doors. This soon produced the desired effect. Cut off from
his base of supplies, the idol had no choice but to surrender
at discretion. Rain fell in a few days, and thus the god
was reinstated in the affections of the faithful.3 When the
rice-crop is endangered by long drought, the governor of
Battambang, a province of Siam, goes in great state to a
certain pagoda and prays to Buddha for rain. Then, accom-
panied by his suite and followed by an enormous crowd, he
adjourns to a plain behind the pagoda. Here a dummy
figure has been made up, dressed in bright colours, and
placed in the middle of the plain. A wild music begins to
play ; maddened by the din of drums and cymbals and
crackers, and goaded on by their drivers, the elephants
charge down on the dummy and trample it to pieces. After
this, Buddha will soon give rain.4 When the spirits with-
hold rain or sunshine, the Comanches whip a slave ; if
1 Hue, V empire chinois, i. 241. 210.
" R. Lange, "Bitten um Regen in 4 Brien, " Apercu sur la province de
Japan," Zeitschrift des Vereins fur Battambang," Cochinchine Francaise :
Volkskunde, iii. (1893), P- 334 S<1- Excursions et Reconnaissances, No. 25,
3
Lettres ddifiantes et citrieuses, xviii. p. 6 sq.
10S MAKING RAIN chap,
the gods prove obstinate, the victim is almost flayed
alive.1
Another way of constraining the rain-god is to disturb
him in his haunts. This seems to be the reason why rain is
supposed to follow the troubling of a sacred spring. The
Dards believe that if a cow-skin or anything impure is placed
in certain springs, storms will follow.2 In the mountains of
Farghana there was a place where rain began to fall as soon
as anything dirty was thrown into a certain famous well.3
Again, in Tabaristan there was said to be a cave in the
mountain of Tak which had only to be defiled by filth or
milk for the rain to begin to fall, and to continue falling till
the cave was cleansed.4 Gervasius mentions a spring, into
which if a stone or a stick were thrown, rain would at once
issue from it and drench the thrower.5 There was a fountain
in Munster such that if it were touched or even looked at by
a human being, it would at once flood the whole province
with rain." When rain was long of coming in the Canary
Islands, the priestesses used to beat the sea with rods to
punish the water-spirit for his niggardliness.' Sometimes an
appeal is made to the pity of the gods. When their corn is
being burnt up by the sun, the Zulus look out for a " heaven
bird," kill it, and throw it into a pool. Then the heaven melts I
with tenderness for the death of the bird ; " it wails for it by'/
raining, wailing a funeral wail."8 In times of drought the
Guanches of Teneriffe led their sheep to sacred ground, and
there they separated the lambs from their dams, that their
plaintive bleating might touch the heart of the god.9 A
Hindoo method of stopping rain is to pour hot oil in the left
ear of a dog. The animal howls with pain, his howls are
heard by Indra, and out of pity for the beast's sufferings the
1 Bancroft, Native Races of 'the Pacific 5 Gervasius von Tilbury, Otia Im-
States, i. 520. perialia, ed. F. Liebrecht, p. 41 sq.
2 Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindoo f Giraldus Cambrensis, Topography
Koodi n o? of Ireland, ch. 7. Compare W. Mann-
' P' a' , hardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulle, p.
3 Albiriini, The Chronology of An- -..l n0(;e-
dent Nations, translated and edited by 7 [___ t. B. Beren^er-Feraud Super-
C. E. Sachau (London, 1879), p. 235. stilions et survivances, i. 473. '
This and the following passage were s Callaway, Religious System of the
pointed out to me by my late friend, Amazulu, p. 407 sq.
W. Robertson Smith. 9 Reclus, Nouvelle Geographic Uni-
4 Albir.lni, loc. cit. verselle, xii. 100.
i MAKING RAIN 109
god stops the rain.1 A peculiar mode of making rain was
adopted by some of the heathen Arabs. They tied two sorts
of bushes to the tails and hind legs of their cattle, and, setting
fire to the bushes, drove the cattle to the top of a mountain,
praying for rain.2 This may be, as Wellhausen suggests,
an imitation of lightning on the horizon ;3 but it may also
be a way of threatening the sky, as some West African rain-
makers put a pot of inflammable materials on the fire and
blow up the flames, threatening that if heaven does not soon
give rain they will send up a blaze which will set the sky
on fire.4
Stones are often supposed to possess the property of
bringing on rain, provided they be dipped in water or sprinkled
with it, or treated in some other appropriate manner. In a
Samoan village a certain stone was carefully housed as the
representative of the rain-making god, and in time of drought
his priests carried the stone in procession and dipped it in a
stream.5 Among the Ta-ta-thi tribe of New South Wales,
the rain-maker breaks off a piece of quartz-crystal and spits
it towards the sky ; the rest of the crystal he wraps in emu
feathers, soaks both crystal and feathers in water, and care-
fully hides them.'3 In the Keramin tribe of New South
Wales the wizard retires to the bed of a creek, drops water
on a round flat stone, then covers up and conceals it.7 When
the Wakondjo, a tribe of Central Africa, desire rain, they
send to the Wawamba, who dwell at the foot of snowy
mountains, and are the happy possessors of a " rain-stone."
In consideration of a proper payment, the Wawamba wash
the precious stone, anoint it with oil, and put it in a pot full
of water. After that the rain cannot fail to come.s In some
parts of Mongolia, when the people desire rain, they fasten a
bezoar stone to a willow twig, and place it in pure water,
^ 1 North Indian Notes and Queries, some Tribes of New South Wales,"
iii. p. 135, § 285. Journal of the Anthropological Institute,
- Rasmussen, Additamenta ad his- xiv. (18S5), p, 362. For other uses of
toriam Arabian ante Islamismum, p. quartz -crystal in ceremonies for the
67/</- making of rain, see above, pp. 84, 85.
- J. Wellhausen, Reste arabischen 1 A. L. P. Cameron, loc. cit. Com-
Heidentumes, p. 157 (first edition). pare E. M. Curr, The Australian Race,
Labat, Relation historique de ii. 377.
? Ethiopia tccidentale, ii. 1S0. 8 Fr_ Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha
5 G. Turner, Samoa, p. 145. ins Herz von Afrika (Berlin, 1894),
8 A. L. P. Cameron, "Notes on p. 654.
no MAKING RAIN chap.
uttering incantations or prayers at the same time.1 Con-
versely, when Dr. RadlofFs Mongolian guide wished to stop
the rain, he tied a rock-crystal by a short string to a stick,
held the stone over the fire, and then swung the stick about
in all directions, while he chanted an incantation.2 Water is
scarce with the fierce Apaches, who roam the arid wastes of
Arizona and New Mexico, for springs are few and far between
in these burning wildernesses, where the intense heat would
be unendurable were it not for the great dryness of the air.
The stony beds of the streams are waterless in the plains ;
but if you ascend for some miles the profound canons that
worm their way into the heart of the wild and rugged moun-
tains, you come in time to a current trickling over the sand,
and a mile or two more will bring you to a stream of a
tolerable size flowing over boulders and screened from the
fierce sun by walls of rock that tower on either hand a
thousand feet into the air, their parched sides matted with
the fantastic forms of the prickly cactus, and -their summits
crested with pines, whose black shapes, stirred by breezes
that are unfelt in the hot and airless depths of the ravine,
look like moving fringes to the narrow strip of blue sky far
overhead. In such a land we need not wonder that the
thirsty Indians seek to procure rain by magic. They take
water from a certain spring and throw it on a particular point
high up on a rock ; the welcome clouds then soon gather, and
rain begins to fall.3 But customs of this sort are not confined to
the wilds of Africa and Asia or the torrid deserts of Australia
and the New World. They have been practised in the cool
air and under the grey skies of Europe. There is a fountain
called Barenton, of romantic fame, in those " wild woods
of Broceliande," where, if legend be true, the wizard Merlin
still sleeps his magic slumber in the hawthorn shade.
Thither the Breton peasants used to resort when they
needed rain. They caught some of the water in a tankard
1 G. Timkowski, Travels of the Rits- 339- Vivid descriptions of the scenery
sian Mission through Jl/ongolia to and climate of Arizona and New
China (London, 1827), i. 402 sq. Mexico will be found in Captain J. G.
Bourke's On the Border with Crook
2 W. Radloff, Aits Sibirien (Leipsic,
1884), ii. 179 sq.
(New York, 1891); see for example
pp. I sq., 12 sq., 23 sq., ^Osq., 34 sq.,
3 The American Antiquarian, viii. 41 sqq., 185, 190 sq.
i MAKING RAIN 1 1 1
and threw it on a slab near the spring.1 On Snowdon
there is a lonely tarn called Dulyn, or the Black Lake, lying
" in a dismal dingle surrounded by high and dangerous
rocks." A row of stepping-stones runs out into the lake, and
if any one steps on the stones and throws water so as to wet
the farthest stone, which is called the Red Altar, " it is but
a chance that you do not get rain before night, even when it
is hot weather."2 In these cases it appears probable that, as
in Samoa, the stone is regarded as more or less divine. This
appears from the custom sometimes observed of dipping the
cross in the Fountain of Barenton to procure rain, for this is
plainly a Christian substitute for the old pagan way of
throwing water on the stone.3 At various places in France
it is, or used till lately to be, the practice to dip the image of
a saint in water as a means of procuring rain. Thus, beside
the old priory of Commagny, a mile or two to the south-west
of Moulins-Engilbert, there is a spring of St. Gervais, whither
the inhabitants go in procession to obtain rain or fine weather
according to the needs of the crops. In times of great
drought they throw into the basin of the fountain an ancient
stone image of the saint that stands in a sort of niche from
which the fountain flows.4 At Collobrieres and Carpentras,
both in Provence, a similar practice was observed with the
images of St. Pons and St. Gens respectively.5 In several
villages of Navarre prayers for rain used to be offered to St.
Peter, and by way of enforcing them the villagers carried the
image of the saint in procession to the river, where they thrice
invited him to reconsider his resolution and to grant their
prayers ; then, if he was still obstinate, they plunged him in
the water, despite the remonstrances of the clergy, who
pleaded with as much truth as piety that a simple caution or
1 J. Rhys, Celtic Heathendom, p. Anne, near Geveze, in Brittany. See
184; Grimm, Deutsche Mythologies P. Sebillot, Traditions et superstitions
j i. 494 ; L. J. B. Berenger-Feraud, de la Haute-Bretagne, i. 72.
j Superstitions et survivances, iii. 190 4 G. Herve, " Qvtelques superstitions
I sq. Compare A. de Nore, Coutumes, de Morvan," Bulletins de la Sociiti
I mythes et traditions des provinces de d Anthropologic de Paris, 4111c serie,
Fra?ice, p. 216 ; San Marte, Die Arthur iii. (1892), p. 530.
Sage, pp. 105 sq., 153 sqq. 5 Berenger-Feraud and de Mortillet,
2 J. Rhys, Celtic Heathendom, p. in Bulletins de la SociSte ' d' Anthropologic
! 1^>5 Sll- de Paris, 4me serie, ii. (1891), pp. 306,
3 J- Rhys, op. cit. p. 187. The same 310 sq. ; Berenger-Feraud, Supersti-
\ thing is done at the fountain of Sainte lions et survivances, i. 427.
i
i
U2 MAKING RAIN chai>.
admonition administered to the image would produce an
equally good effect. After this the rain was sure to fall
within twenty-four hours.1 Catholic countries do not enjoy
a monopoly of making rain by ducking holy images in water.
In Mingrelia, when the crops are suffering from want of rain,
they take a particularly holy image and dip it in water every
day till a shower falls ;'J and in the Far East the Shans
drench the images of Buddha with water when the rice is
perishing of drought.3 In all such cases the practice is
probably at bottom a sympathetic charm, however it may be
disguised under the appearance of a punishment or a threat.
The application of water to a miraculous stone is not the
only way of securing its good offices in the making of rain.
In the island of Uist, one of the outer Hebrides, there is a
stone cross opposite to St. Mary's church, which the natives
used to call the Water-cross. When they needed rain, they
set the cross up ; and when enough rain had fallen, they laid
it flat on the ground.4 In Aurora, one of the New Hebrides
islands, the rain-maker puts a tuft of leaves of a certain plant
in the hollow of a stone ; over it he lays some branches of a
pepper-tree pounded and crushed, and to these he adds a
stone which is believed to possess the property of drawing
down showers from the sky. All this he accompanies with
incantations, and finally covers the whole mass up. In time
it ferments, and steam, charged with magical virtue, goes up
and makes clouds and rain. The wizard must be careful,
however, not to pound the pepper too hard, as otherwise the
wind might blow too strong.5 Sometimes the stone derives
its magical virtue from its likeness to a real or imaginary
animal. Thus, at Kota Gadang in Sumatra, there is a stone
which, with the help of a powerful imagination, may perhaps
be conceived to bear a faint and distant resemblance to a cat.
Naturally, therefore, it possesses the property of eliciting
showers from the sky, since in Sumatra, as we have seen, a
1 Le Brun, Historic critique des on an Elephant in the Shan States
pratiques superstitieuses (Amsterdam, (Edinburgh and London, I S90), p. 264.
I7r?), i. 245 sq. ; Berenger-Feraud, , ,, . .. „ . f tl „T ,
'JJ" ...**• ■ i Martin, " Description of the \\ est-
Superstitions et survivanccs, 1. 477. T . , f „ ., % „ . t,. , . •
{. . „ . . j 1 r- 1 ern Islands of Scotland, in rmkerton s
2 Lamberti, " Relation de la Col-
chide ou Mingrelie," Voyages an Nord,
vii. 174 (Amsterdam, 1725). 5 R. H. Codrington, The Melanes-
Voyages and Travels, iii. 594-
5 R. H. C
3 H. S. Hallett, A Thousand Miles ians, p. 201.
i MAKING RAIN 113
real black cat plays a part in ceremonies for the production
of rain. Hence the stone is sometimes smeared with the
blood of fowls, rubbed, and incensed, while a charm is uttered
over it.1 At Eneti, in Washington Territory, there is an
irregular basaltic rock on which a face, said to be that of the
thunder-bird, has been hammered. The Indians of the neigh-
bourhood long believed that to shake the rock would cause
rain by exciting the wrath of the thunder-bird.2
Like other peoples, the Greeks and Romans sought to
obtain rain by magic, when prayers and processions 3 had
proved ineffectual. For example, in Arcadia, when the corn
and trees were parched with drought, the priest of Zeus
dipped an oak branch into a certain spring on Mount
Lycaeus. Thus troubled, the water sent up a misty cloud,
from which rain soon fell upon the land.4 A similar mode
of making rain is still practised, as we have seen, in Halma-
hera near New Guinea.5 The people of Crannon in Thessaly
had a bronze chariot which they kept in a temple. When
they desired a shower they shook the chariot and the shower
fell.6 Probably the rattling of the chariot was meant to
imitate thunder ; we have already seen that mock thunder
and lightning form part of a rain-charm in Russia and
Japan.' The legendary Salmoneus of Thessaly made mock
1 J. L. van der Toorn, " Het anim- 4 Pausanias, viii. 38. 4.
isme bij den Minangkabauer der Pa- 5 <■ , o
dagnsche Bovenlanden," Bijdragen tot ' "" '
de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van ° Antigonus, Histor. Mirab. 15
Nederlandsch Indie, xxxix. (1890), p. (Scriplores remm mirabilium Graeci,
86. As to the cat in rain-making cere- ed- A- Westermann, p. 64 sq. ). Antigo-
monies, see above, p. 102. nus mentions that the badge of the city
2 Myron Eels, "The Twana, Che- was a representation of the chariot with
makum, and Klallam Indians of Wash- a couple of ravens perched on it. This
ington Territory," Annual Report of badge appears on existing coins of
the Smithsonian Institute for 18S7, p. Crannon, with the addition of a pitcher
674. resting on the chariot (B. V. Head,
3 As to such prayers, see Pausanias, Historia Numorum, p. 249). Hence
ii. 25. 10 ; Marcus Antoninus, v. 7 ; Professor A. Furtwangler has con-
Petronius, 44 ; Tertullian, Apolog. 40, jectured, with great probability, that a
cp. 22 and 23 ; P. Cauer, Delectus In- pitcher full of water was placed on the
scriptionum Graecaruw,2 No. 162 ; H. real chariot when rain was wanted, and
Collitz und F. Bechtel, Sammlung der tnat the spilling of the water, as the
griechischen Dialekl-Inschriften, No. chariot shook, was intended to imitate
3718; Ch. Michel, Recueil dlnscrip- a shower of rain. See A. Furtwangler,
tions Grecques, No. 1004; O. Luders, Meisterwerke der griechischen Plastik,
Die dionysischen Kiinstler (Berlin, PP- 257-263.
1873), P- 26 sq. 1 Above, pp. 82, S3.
VOL. I ,
ii4 MAKING RAIN chap.
thunder by dragging bronze kettles behind his chariot, or by-
driving over a bronze bridge, while he hurled blazing torches
in imitation of lightning. It was his impious wish to mimic
the thundering car of Zeus as it rolled across the vault of
heaven. Indeed he declared that he was actually Zeus, and
caused sacrifices to be offered to himself as such.1 Near a
temple of Mars, outside the walls of Rome, there was kept a
certain stone known as the lapis manalis. In time of
drought the stone was dragged into Rome, and this was
supposed to bring down rain immediately.2 There were
Etruscan wizards who made rain or discovered springs of
water, it is not certain which. They were thought to bring
the rain or the water out of their bellies.3 The legendary
Telchines in Rhodes are described as magicians who could
change their shape and bring clouds, rain, and snow.4 The
Athenians sacrificed boiled, not roast meat to the Seasons,
begging them to avert drought and dry heat and to send
due warmth and timely rain.5 This is an interesting
example of the admixture of religion with sorcery, of
sacrifice with magic. The Athenians dimly conceived that
in some way the water in the pot would be transmitted
through the boiled meat to the deities, and then sent down
again by them in the form of rain.0 In a similar spirit
the prudent Greeks made it a rule always to pour honey,
but never wine, on the altars of the sun-god, pointing out,
with great show of reason, how expedient it was that a
1 Apollodorus, i. 9. 7 ; Virgil, Aen. tion of the desired rain " (Roman
vi. 585 sqq. ; Servius on Virgil, I.e. Festivals of the Period of the Republic,
2 Festus, s.vv. aquaelicium and London, 1899, p. 233).
manalem lapidem, pp. 2, 128, ed. 3 Nonius Marcellus, s.v. aquilex, p.
Miiller; Nonius Marcellus, s. v. trullum, 69, ed. Quicherat. In favour of taking
p. 637, ed. Quicherat ; Servius on aquilex as rain-maker is the use of
Virgil, Aen. iii. 175; Fulgentius, aquaelicium in the sense of rain-making.
"Expos, serm. antiq." s.v. manales Compare K. O. Miiller, Die Etr usher,
lapides, Mythogr. Lat. ed. Staveren, p. ed. \V. Deecke, ii. 318.577.
769517. It has been suggested that the 4 Diodorus Siculus, v. 55.
stone derived its name and its virtue 5 Philochorus, cited by Athenaeus,
from the manes or spirits of the dead xiv. p. 656 A.
(E. Hoffmann, in Rheinisches Museum c Among the Barotsi, on the upper
fir Philologie, N.F. 50 (1895), PP- 4^4- Zambesi, "the sorcerers or witch-
486). Mr. Warde Fowler supposes doctors go from village to village with
that the stone " was either the object remedies which they cook in great
of some splashing or pouring, or was cauldrons to make rain " (A. Bertrand,
itself hollow and was filled with water The Kingdom of the Barotsi, London,
which was to be poured out in imita- 1899, p. 277).
MAKING SUNSHINE
ii5
god on whom so much depended should keep strictly
sober.1
This last instance introduces us to a second class of
natural phenomena which primitive man commonly supposes
to be in some degree under his control and dependent on
his exertions. He fancies he can make the sun to shine,
and can hasten or stay its going down. At an eclipse the
Ojebways used to think that the sun was being extinguished.
So they shot fire-tipped arrows in the air, hoping thus to
rekindle his expiring light.2 Conversely during an eclipse of
the moon some Indian tribes of the Orinoco used to bury
lighted brands in the ground ; because, said they, if the
moon were to be extinguished, all fire on earth would be
extinguished with her, except such as was hidden from her
sight.3 During an eclipse of the sun the Kamtchatkans
used to bring out fire from their huts and pray the great
luminary to shine as before.* But the prayer addressed to
the sun shows that this ceremony was religious rather than
magical. Purely magical, on the other hand, was the
ceremony observed on similar occasions by the Chillchotin
Indians of North- Western America. Men and women tucked
up their robes, as they do in travelling, and then leaning on
staves, as if they were heavy laden, they continued to walk
in a circle till the eclipse was over.5 Apparently they
thought thus to support the failing steps of the sun in the
sky. After the autumnal equinox, in like manner, the ancient
Egyptians held a festival called " the nativity of the sun's
walking-stick," because, as the luminary declined daily in
the sky, and his light and heat diminished, he was supposed
to need a staff on which to lean.6 In New Caledonia when a
wizard desires to make sunshine, he takes some plants and
corals to the burial-ground, and makes them into a bundle,
1 Phylarchus, cited by Athenaeus,
xv. p. 694 E. If the conjectural read-
ing rots 'E/j.ear]vois in place of rot's
"EXXijo-ij' be the true one, the rule was
not observed by the Greeks, but by the
people of Emesa in Syria, where there
was a famous worship of the sun.
2 Peter Jones, History of the Ojeb-
way Indians, p. 84.
3 Gumilla, Histoire de VOrinoque
(Avignon, 1758), iii. 243 sq.
i S. Krascheninnikow, Beschreibung
des Landes Kamtschatka (Lemgo, 1766),
p. 217.
5 A. G. Morice, " The Western
Denes, their manners and customs,"
Proceedings of the Canadian Institute,
Toronto, Third Series, vii. (1888-S9),
P. 154.
6 Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 52.
I
n6 MAKING SUNSHINE chap.
adding two locks of hair cut from a living child (his own child
if possible), also two teeth or an entire jawbone from the
skeleton of an ancestor. He then climbs a high mountain
whose top catches the first rays of the morning sun. Here he
deposits three sorts of plants on a flat stone, places a branch
of dry coral beside them, and hangs the bundle of charms over
the stone. Next morning he returns to this rude altar, and
at the moment when the sun rises from the sea he kindles a
fire on the altar. As the smoke curls up, he rubs the stone
with the dry coral, invokes his ancestors and says : " Sun !
I do this that you may be burning hot, and eat up all the
clouds in the sky." The same ceremony is repeated at sun-
set.1 When the sun rises behind clouds — a rare event in
the bright sky of Southern Africa — the Sun clan of the
Bechuanas say that he is grieving their heart. All work
stands still, and all the food of the previous day is given to
matrons or old women. They may eat it and may share it
with the children they are nursing, but no one else may
taste it. The people go down to the river and wash them-
selves all over. Each man throws into the river a stone
taken from his domestic hearth, and replaces it with one
picked up in the bed of the river. On their return to the
village the chief kindles a fire in his hut, and all his subjects
come and get a light from it. A general dance follows.2
In these cases it seems that the lighting of the flame on
earth is supposed to rekindle the solar fire. Such a belief
comes naturally to people who, like the Sun clan of the
Bechuanas, deem themselves the veritable kinsmen of the
sun. The Banks Islanders make sunshine by means of a
mock sun. They take a very round stone, called a vat loa
or sunstone, wind red braid about it, and stick it with owls'
feathers to represent rays, singing the proper spell in a low
voice. Then they hang it on some high tree, such as a
banyan or a casuarina, in a sacred place. Or the stone is
1 Glaumont, " Usages, moeurs et For the kinship with the sacred object
coutumes des Neo-Caledoniens," Revue (totem) from which the clan takes its
d'Ethnographie, vi. 116. name, see ibid. pp. 350, 422, 424.
Other people have claimed kindred
2 Arbousset et Daumas, Voyage with the sun, as the Natchez of North
cPexploration au nord-esl de la Colonic America ( Voyages an Nord, v. 24) and
du Cap de Bonne-Esp£rance, p. 350 jy/. the Incas of Peru.
i STAYING THE SUN 117
laid on the ground with white rods radiating from it to
imitate sunbeams.1 Sometimes the mode of making sun-
shine is the converse of that of making rain. Thus we have
seen that a white or red pig is sacrificed for sunshine, while
a black one is sacrificed for rain.2 Some of the New
Caledonians drench a skeleton to make rain, but burn it to
make sunshine.3
In a pass of the Peruvian Andes stand two ruined
towers on opposite hills. Iron hooks are clamped into
their walls for the purpose of stretching a net from one
tower to the other. The net is intended to catch the sun.4
On a small hill in Fiji grew a patch of reeds, and travellers
who feared to be belated used to tie the tops of a handful
of reeds together to prevent the sun from going down.5 As
to this my friend the Rev. Lorimer Plson writes to me :
" I have often seen the reeds tied together to keep the sun
from going down. The place is on a hill in Lakomba, one
of the eastern islands of the Fijian group. It is on the side
— not on the top — of the hill. The reeds grow on the right
side of the path. I asked an old man the meaning of the
practice, and he said, ' We used to think the sun would see
us, and know we wanted him not to go down till we got
past on our way home again.' " 6 But perhaps the original
intention was to entangle the sun in the reeds, just as the
Peruvians try to catch him in the net. Stories of men who
have caught the sun in a noose are widely spread.7 In New
I Guinea, when a Motu man is hunting or travelling late in
the afternoon and fears to be overtaken by darkness, he will
sometimes take a piece of twine, loop it, and look through
the loop at the sun. Then he pulls the loop into a knot and
says, " Wait until we get home, and we will give you the fat
of a pig." After that he passes the string to the man be-
hind him, and then it is thrown away. In a similar case a
1 R. H. Codrington, in four;/. 5 Th. Williams, Fiji and the Fijians,
Anthrop. Inslit. x. (1881), p. 278 ; id., i. 250.
The Jlle/anesians (Oxford, i8qi), p. 184.. r, at t?- > 1 <.* ■ j » j \ 4.
., ,. v ' y "r "^ & Mr. r isons letter is dated August
- Above, p. 102. 2g xg g &
3 Turner, Samoa, p. 346. See above,
p. 100. 7 Schoolcraft, The American Indians,
4 Bastian, Die Volker des bstlichen p. 97 sqq. ; Gill, Myths and Songs of 'the
Asien, iv. 174. The name of the South Pacific, p. 61 sq. ; Turner, Samoa,
place is Andahuayllas. p. 200 sq.
u8 STAYING THE SUN chap.
Motumotu man of New Guinea says, " Sun, do not be in a
hurry ; just wait until I get to the end." And the sun
waits. The Motumotu do not like to eat in the dark ; so if
the food is not yet ready, and the sun is sinking, they say,
" Sun, stop ; my food is not ready, and I want to eat by
you." l Here the looking at the sinking sun through a[
loop and then drawing the loop into a knot appears to be!
a purely magical ceremony designed to catch the sun in the'
mesh ; but the request that the luminary would kindly:
stand still till home is reached or the dinner cooked, coupled
with the offer of a slice of fat bacon as an inducement to him
to comply with the request, is thoroughly religious. Jerome
of Prague, travelling among the heathen Lithuanians early
in the fifteenth century, found a tribe who worshipped the
sun and venerated a large iron hammer. The priests told
him that once the sun had been invisible for several months,
because a powerful king had shut it up in a strong tower ;
but the signs of the zodiac had broken open the tower with
this very hammer and released the sun. Therefore they
adored the hammer.2 When an Australian blackfellow
wishes to stay the sun from going down till he gets home,
he puts a sod in the fork of a tree, exactly facing the
setting sun.3 For the same purpose an Indian of Yucatan,
journeying westward, places a stone in a tree or pulls out
some of his eyelashes and blows them towards the sun.4
South African natives, in travelling, will put a stone in a
branch of a tree or place some grass on the path with a
stone over it, believing that this will cause their friends to
keep the meal waiting till their arrival.'5 In these, as in
previous examples, the purpose apparently is to retard the
sun. But why should the act of putting a stone or a sod in
a tree be supposed to effect this ? A partial explanation is
suggested by another Australian custom. In their journeys
the natives are accustomed to place stones in trees at
1 J. Chalmers, Pioneering in Arew 4 Fancourt, History of Yucatan, p.
Guinea, p. 172. 118 ; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire
2 Aeneas Sylvius, Opera (Bale, 1 57 1), des nations civitisees du Mexique et de
p. 418 [wrongly numbered 420]. V Anu'rique-Centrale, ii. 51.
3 Brough Smyth, Aborigines of
Victoria, ii. 334; Curr, The Australian 5 South African Folklore Journal,
Race, i. 50. i. 34.
i MAKING WIND 119
different heights from the ground in order to indicate the
height of the sun in the sky at the moment when they
passed the particular tree. Those who follow are thus made
aware of the time of day when their friends in advance
passed the spot.1 Possibly the natives, thus accustomed to
mark the sun's progress, may have slipped into the confusion
of imagining that to mark the sun's progress was to arrest
it at the point marked. On the other hand, to make it go
down faster, the Australians throw sand into the air and
blow with their mouths towards the sun,2 perhaps to waft
the lingering orb westward and bury it under the sands
into which it appears to sink at night.
Once more, the savage thinks he can make the wind to
blow or to be still. When the day is hot and a Yakut has
a long way to go, he takes a stone which he has chanced
to find in an animal or fish, winds a horse-hair several times
round it, and ties it to a stick. He then waves the stick
about, uttering a spell. Soon a cool breeze begins to blow.3
The Wind clan of the Omahas flap their blankets to start a
breeze which will drive away the mosquitoes.4 W7hen a
Haida Indian wishes to obtain a fair wind, he fasts, shoots
a raven, singes it in the fire, and then going to the edge of
the sea sweeps it over the surface of the water four times in
the direction in which he wishes the wind to blow. He
then throws the raven behind him, but afterwards picks it
up and sets it in a sitting posture at the foot of a spruce-
tree, facing towards the required wind. Propping its beak
open with a stick, he requests a fair wind for a certain
number of days ; then going away he lies covered up in his
mantle till another Indian asks him for how many days he
has desired the wind, which question he answers.5 When a
sorcerer in New Britain wishes to make a wind blow in a
certain direction, he throws burnt lime in the air, chanting
1 E. J. Eyre, Journals of Expeditions Bureau of Ethnology (Washington,
of Discovery into Central Australia 1884), p. 241; id., "A Study of
(London, 1845), ii. 365. Siouan Cults," Eleventh Annual Report
2 Curr, The Australian Race,\\\. 145. °f the Bureau of Ethnology (Washing-
•! r- • t0n' IS°4), P- 410-
^ Gmehn, Keise durch Sibirien, ii. 5 G. M< Dawson, "On the Haida
-> ' Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands,"
4 J. Owen Dorsey, " Omaha Socio- Geological Survey of Canada, Report of
logy," Third Annual Report of the progress for 1878-1879, p. 124 B.
120 MAKING WIND chap.
a song all the time. Then he waves sprigs of ginger and
other plants about, throws them up and catches them. Next
he makes a small fire with these sprigs on the spot where
the lime has fallen thickest, and walks round the fire chant-
ing. Lastly, he takes the ashes and throws them on the
water.1 If a Hottentot desires the wind to drop, he takes
one of his fattest skins and hangs it on the end of a pole, in
the belief that by blowing the skin down the wind will lose
all its force and must itself fall.2 Fuegian wizards throw
shells against the wind to make it drop.3 On the other
hand, when a Persian peasant desires a strong wind to
winnow his corn, he rubs a kind of bastard saffron and
throws it up into the air ; after that the breeze soon begins
to blow.4 " Some of the Indians of Canada believed that the
winds were caused by a fish like a lizard. When one of
these fish had been caught, the Indians advised the Jesuit
missionaries to put it back into the river as fast as possible in
order to calm the wind, which was contrary.5 When the Kei
Islanders wish to obtain a favourable wind for their friends at
sea, they dance in a ring, both men and women, swaying their
bodies to and fro, while the men hold handkerchiefs in their
hands.0 In Melanesia there are everywhere weather-doctors
who can control the powers of the air and are willing to
supply wind or calm in return for a proper remuneration. For
instance, in Santa Cruz the wizard makes wind by waving the
branch of a tree and chanting the appropriate charm.' In
another Melanesian island a missionary observed a large shell
filled with earth, in which an oblong stone, covered with
red ochre, was set up, while the whole was surrounded by
a fence of sticks strengthened by a creeper which was twined
in and out the uprights. On asking a native what these
1 W. Powell, Wanderings in a Wild aborigines thought that a wished-for
Country, p. 169. wind would not rise if shell-fish were
2 Dapper, Description de FAfrique roasted at night (D. Collins, Account of
(Amsterdam, 1686), p. 389. the English Colony in New South Wales,
3 Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn, London, 1804, p. 382).
vii. (Paris, 1891), p. 257. 6 C. M. Pleyte, " Ethnographische
4 J. Richardson, A Dictionary of Beschrijving der Kei Eilanden," Tijd-
Persian, Arabic, and English, new schrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijks-
edition (London, 1829), p. liii. sq. kundig Genootschap, Tweede Serie, x.
5 Relations des Jhuites, 1836, p. (1893), p. S27.
38 (Canadian reprint). On the other 7 R. H. Codrington, The Melanes-
hand, some of the New South Wales ians, pp. 200, 201.
i MAKING WIND 121
things meant, he learned that the wind was here fenced or
bound round, lest it blow hard ; the imprisoned wind would
not be able to blow again until the fence that kept it in
should have rotted away.1 A method of making wind which
is practised in New Guinea is to strike a " wind-stone " lightly
with a stick ; to strike it hard would bring on a hurricane.2
So in Scotland witches used to raise the wind by dipping a
rag in water and beating it thrice on a stone, saying :
" I knok this rag upone this stane
To raise the wind in the divellis name,
It sail not lye till I please againe." 3
At Victoria, the capital of Vancouver's Island, there are
a number of large stones not far from what is- called the
Battery. Each of them represents a certain wind. When
an Indian wants any particular wind, he goes and moves
the corresponding stone a little ; were he to move it too
much, the wind would blow very hard.4 On the altar of
Fladda's chapel, in the island of Fladdahuan (one of the
Hebrides), lay a round bluish stone which was always moist.
Windbound fishermen walked sunwise round the chapel and
then poured water on the stone, whereupon a favourable
breeze was sure to spring up.5 In Gigha, an island off the
western coast of Argyleshire, there is a well named Tobar-
rath Bhuathaig or " The lucky well of Beathag," which used
to be famous for its power of raising the wind. It lies at
the foot of a hill facing north-east near an isthmus called
Tarbat. Six feet above where the water gushes out, there
is a heap of stones which forms a cover to the sacred spring.
When a person wished for a fair wind, either to leave the
island or to bring home his absent friends, this part was
opened with great solemnity, the stones were carefully
removed, and the well cleaned with a wooden dish or a
1 J. Palmer, quoted by R. H. Cod- 4 Fr. Boas, in Sixth Report on the
rington, The Melanesians, p. 201, note. North-Western Tribes of Canada, p.
2 W. Monckton, "Some Recollec- 26 (seParate rePrint from the Report of
tions of New Guinea Customs," Journal the. Britnh ^oaationfor 1 890).
of the Polynesian Society, v. (1896) ° Martin, " Description of the West-
p_ I86_ em Islands of Scotland," in Pinker-
ton's Voyages and Travels, iii. 627 ;
J. G. Dalyell, The Darker Super- Miss C. F. Gordon dimming, In the
stilions of Scotland, p. 248. Hebrides, p. 166 sq.
122 MAKING WIND chap.
clam shell. This being done, the water was thrown several
times in the direction from which the wished-for wind was
to blow, and this action was accompanied by a certain form
of words, which the person repeated every time he threw the
water. When the ceremony was over, the well was again
carefully shut up to prevent fatal consequences, it being
firmly believed that, were the place left open, a storm would
arise which would overwhelm the whole island.1 The
Esthonians have various odd ways of raising a wind. They
scratch their finger, or hang up a serpent, or strike an axe
into a house-beam in the direction from which they wish the
wind to blow, while at the same time they whistle. The
notion is that the gentle wind will not let an innocent being
or even a beam suffer without coming and breathing softly
to assuage the pain.2
In Mabuiag, an island between New Guinea and Australia,
there were men whose business was to make wind for such
as wanted it. When engaged in his professional duties the
wizard painted himself black behind and red on his face
and chest. The red in front typified the red cloud of morn-
ing, the black represented the dark blue sky of night. Thus
arrayed he took some bushes, and, when the tide was low,
fastened them at the edge of the reef so that the flowing
tide made them sway backwards and forwards. But if only
a gentle breeze was needed, he fastened them nearer to the
shore. To stop the wind he again painted himself red and
black, the latter in imitation of the clear blue sky, and then
removing the bushes from the reef he dried and burnt them.
The smoke as it curled up was believed to stop the wind :
" Smoke he go up and him clear up on top." Amongst
the Kurnai tribe of Gippsland in Victoria there used to be
a noted raiser of storms who went by the name of Bunjil
Kraura or " Great West Wind." This wind makes the tall
slender trees of the Gippsland forests to rock and sway so
that the natives could not climb them in search of opossums.
Hence the people were forced to propitiate Bunjil Kraura
1 W. Fraser, in Sinclair's Statistical p. 105 sq.
Account of Scotland, viii. 52 note. 3 A. C. Haddon, "The Ethnography
2 Boecler-Kreutzwald, Der Ehsten of the Western Tribe of Torres Straits,"
abergliiiibische Gebriiuche, IVeisen und Journal of the Anthropological Institute,
Geivohnheiten (St. Petersburg, 1854), xix. (1890), p. 401 sq.
i MAKING WIND 123
by liberal offerings of weapons and rugs, whenever the tree-
tops bent before a gale. Having received their gifts, Bunjil
Kraura would bind his head with swathes of stringy bark
and lull the storm to rest with a song which consisted of
the words " Wear — string — Westwind," repeated again and
again.1 Apparently the wizard identified himself with the
wind, and fancied that he could bind it by tying string round
his own head. The Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia
believe that twins are nothing but salmon transformed, and
hence they prevent twins from going near a river or the sea,
lest they should be changed back into salmon and glide away,
with a shimmer of silvery scales, through the clear water. In
their childhood twins can summon any wind by merely mov-
ing their hands ; and when the Indians pray to the wind to
be still they say, " Calm down, breath of the twins ! " 2 In
Greenland a woman in childbed and for some time after de-
livery is supposed to possess the power of laying a storm.
She has only to go out of doors, fill her mouth with air, and
coming back into the house blow it out again.3 In antiquity-
there was a family at Corinth which enjoyed the reputation
of being able to still the raging wind ; but we do not know
in what manner its members exercised a useful function,
which probably earned for them a more solid recompense
than mere repute among the seafaring population of the
isthmus.4 Finnish wizards used to sell wind to storm-stayed
mariners. The wind was enclosed in three knots ; if they
undid the first knot, a moderate wind sprang up ; if the
second, it blew half a gale ; if the third, a hurricane.5 Indeed
the Esthonians, whose country is divided from Finland only
by an arm of the sea, still believe in the magical powers of
their northern neighbours. The bitter winds that blow in
spring from the north and north-east, bringing ague and
1 Mary E. B. Howitt, Folklore and 4 Hesychius and Suidas, s.v. ave/no-
Legends of some Victorian Tribes (in koItcu ; Eustathius, on Homer, Od. x.
manuscript). 22, p. 1645. Compare J. Topffer,
2 Fr. Boas, in Fifth Report on the Attische Genealogie, p. 112, who con-
North- Western Tribes of Canada, p. 51 jectures that the Eudanemi or Heuda-
(separate reprint from the Report of the nemi at Athens may also have claimed
British Association for 1889). the power of lulling the winds.
3 Egede, Description of Greenland,
second edition (London, 1818), p. 196, 5 Olaus Magnus, Gentium Septentr.
note. Hist. iii. 15.
124 MAKING WIND chap.
rheumatic inflammations in their train, are set down by the
simple Esthonian peasantry to the machinations of the
Finnish wizards and witches. In particular they regard with
special dread three days in spring to which they give the
name of Days of the Cross ; one of them falls on the Eve of
Ascension Day. The people in the neighbourhood of Fellin
fear to go out on these days lest the cruel winds from Lapp-
land should smite them dead. A popular Esthonian song
runs :
"Wind of the Cross ! rushing and mighty !
Heavy the blow of thy wings sweeping past !
Wild wailing wind of misfortune and sorrow,
Wizards of Finland ride by on the blast."1
It is said, too, that sailors, beating up against the wind
in the Gulf of Finland, sometimes see a strange sail heave
in sight astern and overhaul them hand over hand. On she
comes with a cloud of canvas — all her studding-sails out —
right in the teeth of the wind, forging her way through the
foaming billows, dashing back the spray in sheets from her
cutwater, every sail swollen to bursting, every rope strained
to cracking. Then the sailors know that she hails from
Finland.'2
The art of tying up the wind in three knots, so that the
more knots are loosed the stronger will blow the wind, has
been attributed to wizards in Lappland and to witches in
the island of Lewis and the Isle of Man.3 Shetland seamen
still buy winds from old women who claim to rule the storms.
There are said to be ancient crones in Lerwick now who live
by selling wind.4 In the early part of the nineteenth century
Sir Walter Scott visited one of these witches at Stromness
in the Orkneys. He says : " We clomb, by steep and dirty
lanes, an eminence rising above the town, and commanding
a fine view. An old hag lives in a wretched cabin on this
height, and subsists by selling winds. Each captain of a
1 Boecler-Kreutzwald, Der Ehsten the Isle of Man, ii. 166 ; Miss C. F.
abergldubische Gebrduche, Weisen und Gordon dimming, In the Hebrides, p.
Geivohnheiten, p. 107 sq. 254 sq.
2 Dana, Two Years before the Mast, 4 Rogers, Social Life in Scotland,
ch. vi. iii. 220 ; Sir W. Scott, Pirate, note
3 J. Scheffer, Lapponia (Frankfurt, to ch. vii. Compare Shakespeare,
1673), p. 144; J. Train, Account of Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 3, line 11.
i LAYING THE WIND 125
merchantman, between jest and earnest, gives the old woman
sixpence, and she boils her kettle to procure a favourable
gale. She was a miserable figure ; upwards of ninety, she
told us, and dried up like a mummy. A sort of clay-coloured
cloak, folded over her head, corresponded in colour to her
corpse-like complexion. Fine light-blue eyes, and nose and
chin that almost met, and a ghastly expression of cunning,
gave her quite the effect of Hecate." l A Norwegian witch
has boasted of sinking a ship by opening a bag in which she
had shut up a wind.2 Ulysses received the winds in a
leathern bag from Aeolus, King of the Winds.3 The
Motumotu in New Guinea think that storms are sent by an
Oiabu sorcerer ; for each wind he has a bamboo which he
opens at pleasure.4
Often the stormy wind is regarded as an evil being who
may be intimidated, driven away, or killed. When the
darkening of the sky indicates the approach of a tornado,
a South African magician will repair to a height whither he
collects as many people as can be hastily summoned to his
assistance. Directed by him, they shout and bellow in
imitation of the gust as it swirls roaring about the huts and
among the trees of the forest. Then at a signal they mimic
the crash of the thunder, after which there is a dead silence
for a few seconds ; then follows a screech more piercing and
prolonged than any that preceded, dying away in a tremulous
wail. The magician fills his mouth with a foul liquid which
he squirts in defiant jets against the approaching storm as
a kind of menace or challenge to the spirit of the wind ; and
the shouting and wailing of his assistants are meant to
frigh'en the spirit away. The performance lasts until the
tornado either bursts or passes away in another direction.
If it bursts, the reason is that the magician who sent the
storm was more powerful than he who endeavoured to avert
1 J. G. Lockhart, Memoirs of the leathern bag ; when they escape from
Life of Sir Walter Scott, iii. 203 (first it he pursues them, beats them, and
edition). shuts them up again. See E. Vecken-
9 ~ T . t-, T J ., j~. stedt, Die My then, Sagen und Legenden
L L. Leemms, De Lapponibits rin- , L .. ^ /T ' ° . . ~,
, • . f f . der Zamaiten (Litauer), 1. 1^3. I he
marcniae, etc., commentatio, p. 4=54- r 1 ■ • 1
r t->-t statements of this writer, however, are
3 Homer, Odyssey, x. 19 sqq. It is to be received with caution.
said that Perdoytus, the Lithuanian 4 J. Chalmers, Pioneering in New
Aeolus, keeps the winds enclosed in a Guinea, p. 177.
126 LAYING THE WIND chap.
it.1 When storms and bad weather have lasted long and
food is scarce with the Central Esquimaux, they endeavour to
conjure the tempest by making a long whip of seaweed,
armed with which they go down to the beach and strike out
in the direction of the wind, crying, " Taba (it is enough) ! " 2
Once when north-westerly winds had kept the ice long on
the coast and food was becoming scarce, the Esquimaux per-
formed a ceremony to make a calm. A fire was kindled on
the shore, and the men gathered round it and chanted. An
old man then stepped up to the fire and in a coaxing voice
invited the demon of the wind to come under the fire and
warm himself. When he was supposed to have arrived, a
vessel of water, to which each man present had contributed,
was thrown on the flames by an old man, and immediately
a flight of arrows sped towards the spot where the fire had
been. They thought that the demon would not stay where
he had been so badly treated. To complete the effect, guns
were discharged in various directions, and the captain of a
European vessel was invited to fire on the wind with cannon.3
On the twenty-first of February 1883 a similar ceremony was
performed by the Esquimaux of Point Barrow, Alaska, with
the intention of killing the spirit of the wind. Women drove
the demon from their houses with clubs and knives, with
which they made passes in the air ; and the men, gathering
round a fire, shot him with their rifles and crushed him
under a heavy stone the moment that steam rose in a cloud
from the smouldering embers, on which a tub of water had
just been thrown.4
When a gust lifts the hay in the meadow, the Breton
peasant throws a knife or a fork at it to prevent the devil from
carrying off the hay.0 Similarly in the Esthonian island of
Oesel, when the reapers are busy among the corn and the wind
blows about the ears that have not yet been tied into sheaves,
1 J. Macdonald, Religion and Myth, 1S75 (Royal Geographical Society),
p. 7. p. 274.
4 J. Murdoch, " Ethnological Re-
2 Fr. Boas, "The Central Eskimo," suits of the Point Barrow Expedition,"
Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of
of Ethnology (Washington, 1888), p. Ethnology (Washington, 1892), p. 432
593- s1-
5 P. Sebillot, Continues populaires de
3 Arctic Papers for the Expedition of la Haute-Bretagne, p. 302 sq.
i LAYING THE WIND 127
the reapers slash at it with their sickles.1 The custom oft
flinging a knife or a hat at a whirlwind is observed alike by-
German, Slavonian, and Esthonian rustics ; they think that a
witch or wizard is riding on the wind, and that the knife, if it
hits the witch, will be reddened by her blood or will disappear
altogether, sticking in the wound it has inflicted.2 Sometimes
Esthonian peasants run shrieking and shouting behind a
whirlwind, hurling sticks and stones into the flying dust.3
When the wind blows down their huts, the Payaguas of
South America snatch up firebrands and run against the
wind, menacing it with the blazing brands, while others beat
the air with their fists to frighten the storm.4 When the
Guaycurus are threatened by a severe storm, the men go out
armed, and the women and children scream their loudest to
intimidate the demon.0 During a tempest the inhabitants of
a Batta village in Sumatra have been seen to rush from their
houses armed with sword and lance. The rajah placed
himself at their head, and with shouts and yells they hewed
and hacked at the invisible foe. An old woman was observed
to be especially active in the defence of her house, slashing
the air right and left with a long sabre.6 In Australia the
huge columns of red sand that move rapidly across a desert
1 Holzmayer, "Osiliana," Verhand- cloud of dust blown along a road, and
lungen der gelehrten Estnischen Gesell- she explained her behaviour by saying
schaft zu Dorpat, vii. 2, p. 54. that she wished to give something to
2 Kuhn und Schwartz, Norddentsche the fairies who were playing in the
Sagen, Marchen mid Gebrduche, p. dust {Folklore, iv. (1893), p. 352). But
454, § 406 ; W. Mannhardt, Die these are sacrifices to appease, not
Cotter der deutschen und nordischen ceremonies to constrain the spirits of
I Vb'lker (Berlin, 1S60), p. 99; id., the air ; thus they belong to the domain
! Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, p. 85; of religion rather than to that of magic.
1 Boeder -Kreutz wald, Der Ehsten aber- The ancient Greeks sacrificed to the
\glaubische Gebrduche, Weisen und winds. See P. Stengel, " Die Opfer der'
Gewohnheiten, p. 109 ; F. S. Krauss, Hellenen an die "Winde," Hermes, xvi.
Volksglaube und religibser Branch der (1SS1), pp. 346-350; and my note on
\Sudslaven, p. 117. In some parts of Pausanias, ii. 12. 1.
Austria and Germany, when a storm is 3 j. G. Kohl, Die deutsch-russischen
. raging, the people open a window and Ostseeprovinzen, ii. 278.
throw out a handful of meal, savins: to , , T, , ,, , , .
i .1 • i ,,rr, .1 ., t Azara, voyasre dans I Amerique
1 the wind, "There, that s for you, ,,, ... , ..-' * *
, , ,, c a T> / 17 11 ji ■• 7- * Alendronate, 11. 137.
I stop! See A. Peter, lolksthiunhches ' J/
\\aus oesterreichisch Schlesien, ii. 259; 5 Charlevoix, Histoire du Paraguay,
Grimm, Deutsche Alythologie,^ 529 ; n- 74-
Zingerle, SittenBrducheundMeinungen ^ W. A. Henry, " Bijdrage tot de
-\des Tiroler Volkes,2 p. 118, § 1046. Kennis der Bataklanden," Tijdschrift
I Similarly an old Irishwoman has been voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volken-
seen to fling handfuls of grass into a kunde, xvii. 23 sq.
128 LAYING THE WIND chap.
tract are thought by the natives to be spirits passing along.
Once an athletic young black ran after one of these moving
columns to kill it with boomerangs. He was away two or
three hours, and came back very weary saying he had killed
Koochee (the demon), but that Koochee had growled at him
and he must die.1 Of the Bedouins of Eastern Africa it is
said that "no whirlwind ever sweeps across the path without
being pursued by a dozen savages with drawn creeses, who
stab into the centre of the dusty column in order to drive
away the evil spirit that is believed to be riding on the blast."2
In the light of these examples a story told by Herodotus,
wrhich his modern critics have treated as a fable, is perfectly
credible. He says, without however vouching for the truth
of the tale, that once in the land of the Psylli, the modern
Tripoli, the wind blowing from the Sahara had dried up all
the water-tanks. So the people took counsel and marched
in a body to make war on the south wind. But when they
entered the desert, the simoom swept down on them and
buried them to a man.3 The story may well have been told
by one who watched them disappearing, in battle array, with
drums and cymbals beating, into the red cloud of whirling
sand.
§ 3. Incarnate Gods
These instances, drawn from the beliefs and practices of
rude peoples all over the world, may suffice to prove that
the savage, whether European or otherwise, fails to recognise
1 Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Vic- of the Karnal District, p. 154). The
toria, i. 457 sq. ; compare id., ii. Pawnees believe them to be ghosts (G.
270 ; A. W. Hovvitt, in Journal of B. Grinnell, Pawnee Hero-Stories and
the Anthropological Institute, xiii. Folk-tales, p. 357). California!! Indians
(1884), p. 194, note. think that they are happy souls ascend-
2 W. Cornwallis Harris, The High- ing to the heavenly land (Stephen
lands of Ethiopia, i. 352. Compare Powers, Tribes of California, p. 328).
Ph. Paulitschke, Tthnographie ATordost- Once when a great Fijian chief died, a
Afrikas : die geistige Ciiltnr der whirlwind swept across the lagoon.
Dandkil, Galla und Somdl (Berlin, An old man who saw it covered his
1S96), p. 28. Even where these dust mouth with his hand and said in an
columns are not attacked they are still awestruck whisper, "There goes his
regarded with awe. In some parts of spirit ! " (Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a
India they are supposed to be binds letter to the author, dated August 26,
going to bathe in the Ganges (Denzil 1898).
C.J. Ibbetson, Settlement Report of the 3 Herodotus, iv. 173 ; Aulus Gellius,
Panipat, Tahsil, and Karnal Par ganah xvi. 11.
i GODS AND MEN 129
those limitations to his power over nature which seem so
obvious to us. In a society where every man is supposed ,,
to be endowed more or less with powers which we should
call supernatural, it is plain that the distinction between gods
and men is somewhat blurred, or rather has scarcely emerged.
The conception of gods as supernatural beings entirely
distinct from and superior to man, and wielding powers to
which he possesses nothing comparable in degree and hardly
even in kind, has been slowly evolved in the course of
history. At first the supernatural agents are not regarded as
greatly, if at all, superior to man ; for they may be frightened
and coerced by him into doing his will. At this stage of
thought the world is viewed as a great democracy ; all beings
in it, whether natural or supernatural, are supposed to stand
on a footing of tolerable equality. But with the growth of
his knowledge man learns to realise more clearly the vastness
of nature and his own littleness and feebleness in presence
of it. The recognition of his own helplessness does not,
however, carry with it a corresponding belief in the impotence
of those supernatural beings with which his imagination
peoples the universe. On the contrary it enhances his
conception of their power. For the idea of the world as a
system of impersonal forces acting in accordance with fixed
and invariable laws has not yet fully dawned or darkened
upon him. The germ of the idea he certainly has, and he
acts upon it, not only in magic art, but in much of the
business of daily life. But the idea remains undeveloped,
land so far as he attempts to explain the world he lives in,
;he pictures it as the manifestation of conscious will and
? personal agency. If then he feels himself to be so frail and
(slight, how vast and powerful must he deem the beings who
(control the gigantic machinery of nature ! Thus as his old
sense of equality with the gods slowly vanishes, he resigns at
the same time the hope of directing the course of nature by
jhis own unaided resources, that is, by magic, and looks more
and more to the gods as the sole repositories of those super-
natural powers which he once claimed to share with them.
With the advance of knowledge, therefore, prayer and sacrifice
assume the leading place in religious ritual ; and magic,
which once ranked with them as a legitimate equal, is
vol. 1 K
i3o INCARNATE GODS chap.
gradually relegated to the background and sinks to the level
of a black art. It is now regarded as an encroachment, at
once vain and impious, on the domain of the gods, and as
such encounters the steady opposition of the priests, whose
reputation and influence rise or fall with those of their gods.
Hence, when at a late period the distinction between religion
and superstition has emerged, we find that sacrifice and
prayer are the resource of the pious and enlightened portion
of the community, while magic is the refuge of the super-
stitious and ignorant. But when, still later, the conception
of the elemental forces as personal agents is giving way to
the recognition of natural law ; then magic, based as it
implicitly is on the idea of a necessary and invariable
sequence of cause and effect, independent of personal will,
reappears from the obscurity and discredit into which it had.
fallen, and by investigating the causal sequences in nature,^
directly prepares the way for science. Alchemy leads up to}
chemistry.
The notion of a man-god, or of a human being endowed
with divine or supernatural powers, belongs essentially to
that earlier period of religious history in which gods and men
are still viewed as beings of much the same order, and before
they are divided by the impassable gulf which, to later
thought, opens out between them. Strange, therefore, as
may seem to us the idea of a god incarnate in human form,
it has nothing very startling for early man, who sees in a
man-god or a god-man only a higher degree of the same
supernatural powers which he arrogates in perfect good faith
to himself. Such incarnate gods are common in rude society.
The incarnation may be temporary or permanent. In the
former case, the incarnation — commonly known as inspiration
or possession — reveals itself in supernatural knowledge rather
than in supernatural power. In other words, its usual mani-
festations are divination and prophecy rather than miracles.
On the other hand, when the incarnation is not merely
temporary, when the divine spirit has permanently taken up
its abode in a human body, the god-man is usually expected
to vindicate his character by working miracles. Only we
have to remember that by men at this stage of thought
miracles are not considered as breaches of natural law. Not
i TEMPO RAR Y INCARNA TION 1 3 1
conceiving the existence of natural law, primitive man cannot
conceive a breach of it. A miracle is to him merely an
unusually striking manifestation of a common power.
The belief in temporary incarnation or inspiration is
world-wide. Certain persons are supposed to be possessed
from time to time by a spirit or deity ; while the possession
lasts, their own personality lies in abeyance, the presence of
the spirit is revealed by convulsive shiverings and shakings
of the man's whole body, by wild gestures and excited looks,
all of which are referred, not to the man himself, but to the
spirit which has entered into him ; and in this abnormal
state all his utterances are accepted as the voice of the god
or spirit dwelling in him and speaking through him. In
Mangaia the priests in whom the gods took up their abode
from time to time were called " god-boxes " or, for shortness,
" gods." Before giving oracles as gods, they drank an
intoxicating liquor, and in the frenzy thus produced their
wild whirling words were received as the voice of the god.1
In Fiji there is in every tribe a certain family who alone are
liable to be thus temporarily inspired or possessed by a
divine spirit. " Their qualification is hereditary, and any one
of the ancestral gods may choose his vehicle from among
them. I have seen this possession, and a horrible sight it is.
In one case, after the fit was over, for some time the man's
muscles and nerves twitched and quivered in an extraordinary
way. He was naked except for his breech-clout, and on his
naked breast little snakes seemed to be wriggling for a
moment or two beneath his skin, disappearing and then
suddenly reappearing in another part of his chest. When
the mbete (which we may translate 'priest' for want of a better
word) is seized by the possession, the god within him calls
out his own name in a stridulous tone, 'It is I ! Katouivere !'
or some other name. At the next possession some other
ancestor may declare himself." In Bali there are certain
persons called pcrmas, who are predestined or fitted by nature
to become the temporary abode of the invisible deities.
When a god is to be consulted, the villagers go and compel
some of these mediums to lend their services. Sometimes
1 Gill, Myths and Songs of the South 2 Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a letter to
Pacific, p. 35. the author, dated August 26, 1898.
1 32 TEMP OR A R Y INCARNA TION chap.
the medium leaves his consciousness at home, and is then
conducted with marks of honour to the temple, ready to
receive the godhead into his person. Generally, however,
some time passes before he can be brought into the requisite
condition of body and mind ; but the desired result may be
hastened by making him inhale the smoke of incense or
surrounding him with a band of singing men or women.
The soul of the medium quits for a time his body, which is
thus placed at the disposal of the deity, and up to the
moment when his consciousness returns all his words and
acts are regarded as proceeding not from himself but from
the god. So long as the possession lasts he is a dewa
kapiragaii, that is, a god who has become man, and in that
character he answers the questions put to him. During this
time his body is believed to be immaterial and hence
invulnerable. A dance with swords and pikes follows the
consultation of the oracle ; but these weapons could make no
impression on the ethereal body of the inspired medium.1 In
Poso, a district of Central Celebes, sickness is often supposed
to be caused by an alien substance, such as a piece of
tobacco, a stick, or even a chopping-knife, which has been
introduced unseen into the body of the sufferer by the
magic art of an insidious foe. To discover and eject this
foreign matter is a task for a god, who for this purpose
enters into the body of a priestess, speaks through her
mouth, and performs the necessary surgical operation with
her hands. An eye-witness of the ceremony has told how,
when the priestess sat beside the sick man, with her head
covered by a cloth, she began to quiver and shake and to
sing in a strident tone, at which some one observed to
the writer, " Now her own spirit is leaving her body and a
god is taking its place." On removing the cloth from her
head she was no longer a woman but a heavenly spirit, and
gazed about her with an astonished air as if to ask how she
came from her own celestial region to this humble abode.
Yet the divine spirit condescended to chew betel and to
drink palm-wine like any poor mortal of earthly mould.
After she had pretended to extract the cause of the disease
1 F. A. Liefrinck, " Bijdrage tot de voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volken-
Kennis van heteiland Bali," Tijdschrift kunde, xxxiii. (1890), p. 260 sq.
TEMPORARY INCARNA TION
133
I
by laying the cloth from her head on the patient's stomach
and pinching it, she veiled her face once more, sobbed,
quivered, and shook violently, at which the people said,
" The human spirit is returning into her." l A Brahman
householder who performs the regular half-monthly sacrifices
is supposed thereby to become himself a deity for a time.
In the words of the Satapatha-Brahmana, "He who is
consecrated draws nigh to the gods and becomes one of the
deities." 2 " All formulas of the consecration are audgrabhana
(elevatory), since he who is consecrated elevates himself
(ud-grabh) from this world to the world of the gods. He
elevates himself by means of these same formulas."3 "He
who is consecrated indeed becomes both Vishnu and a
sacrificer ; for when he is consecrated, he is Vishnu, and
when he sacrifices, he is the sacrificer." 4 After he has com-
pleted the sacrifice he becomes man again, divesting himself
of his sacred character with the words, " Now I am he who
I really am," which are thus explained in the Satapatha-
Brahmana : " In entering upon the vow, he becomes, as it
were, non-human ; and as it would not be becoming for him
to say, ' I enter from truth into untruth'; and as, in fact, he
now again becomes man, let him therefore divest himself (of
the vow) with the text : ' Now I am he who I really am.'" 5
But examples of such temporary inspiration are so
common in every part of the world and are now so familiar
through books on ethnology that it is needless to multiply
illustrations of the general principle.6 It may be well, how-
ever, to refer to two particular modes of producing temporary
inspiration, because they are perhaps less known than some
others, and because we shall have occasion to refer to them
later on. One of these modes of producing inspiration is by
sucking the fresh blood of a sacrificed victim. In the temple
of Apollo Diradiotes at Argos, a lamb was sacrificed by night
1 A. C. Kruijt, " Mijne eerste erva-
ringen te Poso," Mededeelingen van
wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenoot-
schap, xxxvi. (1S92), pp. 399-403.
2 Satapatha- Br&hmana, part ii. pp.
4, 38, 42, 44, translated by). Eggeling
{Sacred Books of the East, vol. xxvi. ).
3 Op. cit. p. 2C.
4 Op. cit. p. 29.
5 SatapatJia- B rahmaua , part i. p. 4,
trans, by J. Eggeling (Sacred Books of
the East, vol. xii.). On the deification
of the sacrificer in the Brahman ritual
see Hubert and Mauss, " Essai sur le
sacrifice," U Annie Sociologique, ii.
(1 897- 1 898), p. 48 sqq.
0 See for examples E. B. Tylor,
Primitive Culture? ii. 13 1 so.
134
INS PI R A 'HON B V BLOOD
CHAP.
once a month ; a woman, who had to observe a rule of
chastity, tasted the blood of the lamb, and thus being
inspired by the god she prophesied or divined.1 At Aegira
in Achaia the priestess of Earth drank the fresh blood of a
bull before she descended into the cave to prophesy.'2 In
Southern India a devil-dancer " drinks the blood of the
sacrifice, putting the throat of the decapitated goat to his
mouth. Then, as if he had acquired new life, he begins to
brandish his staff of bells, and to dance with a quick but
wild unsteady step. Suddenly the afflatus descends. There
is no mistaking that glare, or those frantic leaps. He snorts,
he stares, he gyrates. The demon has now taken bodily
possession of him ; and, though he retains the power of
utterance and of motion, both are under the demon's control,
and his separate consciousness is in abeyance. The by-
standers signalize the event by raising a long shout, attended
with a peculiar vibratory noise, which is caused by the motion
of the hand and tongue, or of the tongue alone. The
devil-dancer is now worshipped as a present deity, and every
bystander consults him respecting his disease, his wants, the
welfare of his absent relatives, the offerings to be made for
the accomplishment of his wishes, and, in short, respecting
everything for which superhuman knowledge is supposed to
be available." 3 At a festival of the Afoors of Minahassa, in
Northern Celebes, after a pig has been killed, the priest rushes
furiously at it, thrusts his head into the carcass, and drinks of
the blood. Then he is dragged away from it by force and set
on a chair, whereupon he begins to prophesy how the rice-
crop will turn out that year. A second time he runs at the
carcass and drinks of the blood ; a second time he is forced
into the chair and continues his predictions. It is thought
there is a spirit in him which possesses the power of
prophecy.4 At Rhetra, a great religious capital of the
1 Pausanias, ii. 24. I. raroxos tic
tov deov ylverai is the expression.
2 Pliny, Nat. Hist, xxviii. 147.
Pausanias (vii. 25. 13) mentions the
draught of bull's blood as an ordeal to
test the chastity of the priestess. Doubt-
less it was thought to serve both
purposes.
3 Caldwell, " On demonolatry in
Southern India," Journal of the
Anthropological Society of Bombay, i.
101 sq. For a description of a similar
rite performed at Periepatam in Southern
India, see Lettres e'difiantes et airietises,
x. 313 sq. In this latter case the
performer was a woman, and the animal
whose hot blood she drank was a pig.
i T. G. F. Riedel. " De Minahasain
I INSPIRA TION BY BLOOD 135
Western Slavs, the priest tasted the blood of the sacrificed
oxen and sheep in order the better to prophesy.1 The true
test of a Dainyal or diviner among some of the Hindoo
Koosh tribes is to suck the blood from the neck of a
decapitated goat.2 The Sabaeans regarded blood as unclean,
but nevertheless drank it because they believed it to be the
food of demons, and thought that by imbibing it they entered
into communion with the demons, who would thus visit them
and lift the veil that hides the future from mortal vision.3
•The other mode of producing temporary inspiration, to which
II shall here refer, is by means of a branch or leaves of a
Isacred tree. Thus in the Hindoo Koosh a fire is kindled
fwith twigs of the sacred cedar ; and the Dainyal or sibyl,
with a cloth over her head, inhales the thick pungent smoke
till she is seized with convulsions and falls senseless to the
ground. Soon she rises and raises a shrill chant, which is
caught up and loudly repeated by her audience.4 So
Apollo's prophetess ate the sacred laurel and was fumigated
with it before she prophesied.5 The Bacchanals ate ivy, and
their inspired fury was by some believed to be due to the
exciting and intoxicating properties of the plant.6
It is worth observing that many peoples expect the
victim as well as the priest or prophet to give signs of in-
spiration by convulsive movements of the body ; and if the
animal remains obstinately steady, they esteem it unfit
for sacrifice. Thus when the Yakuts sacrifice to an evil
spirit, the beast must bellow and roll about, which is con-
1825," Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- ii. 296 sq. ; Asiatic Researches, iv. 40,
Land- en Volkenkunde, xviii. 517 sq. 41, 50, 52 (8vo ed.) ; Paul Soleillet,
Compare " De godsdienst en gods- LAfrique Occidental, p. 123 sq. To
dienst-plegtigheden der Alfoeren in de snuff up the savour of the sacrifice
Menhassa op het eiland Celebes," was similarly supposed to produce
Tijdschrift van Nedeidnndsch Indie, inspiration (Tertullian, Apologei. 23}.
1849, dl. ii. p. 395; N. Graafland, 3 Maimonides, quoted by D. Chwol-
De Mmahassa, 1. 122; Dumont sohu, Die Ssabier und der Ssabismns, ii.
D Urville, Voyage antonr du Monde et ,g0 s„
a la recherche de La Perouse, v. 44^. . -r,. , , . , ™ ., , ., TT. ,
1 F T Mone Geschichte des Heiden- Biddulph, Tribes 0/ the Hindoo
thums im nordlichen Europa, i. 188. ' ' ' "'"
2 Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindoo ~° Liician, Bis accus. 1 ; Tzetzes,
Koosh, p. 96. For other instances of SchoL on Lycophron, 6 ; Plutarch, De
priests or representatives of the deity E aPud Delphos, 2; id., De Pythiae
drinking the warm blood of the victim, oracuhs, 6.
compare Oldfield, Sketches from Nipal, 6 Plutarch, Quaesliones Romanae, 1 12.
136
INSPIRED VICTIMS
CHAP.
sidered a token that the evil spirit has entered into it.1
Apollo's prophetess could give no oracles unless the sacrificial
victim trembled in every limb when the wine was poured
on its head. But for ordinary Greek sacrifices it was enough
that the victim should shake its head ; to make it do so,
water was poured on it.2 Many other peoples (Tonquinesc,
Hindoos, Chuwash, etc.) have adopted the same test of a
suitable victim ; they pour water or wine on its head ; if
the animal shakes its head it is accepted for sacrifice ; if it
does not, it is rejected.3 Among the Kafirs of the Hindoo
Koosh the priest or his substitute pours water into the ear
and all down the spine of the intended victim, whether it be
a sheep or a goat. It is not enough that the animal should
merely shake its head to get the water out of its ear ; it
must shake its whole body as a wet dog shakes himself.
When it does so, a kissing sound is made by all present, and
the victim is forthwith slaughtered.4
The person temporarily inspired is believed to acquire,
not merely divine knowledge, but also, at least occasionally,
divine power. In Cambodia, when an epidemic breaks out,
the inhabitants of several villages unite and go with a band
of music at their head to look for the man whom the local
god is supposed to have chosen for his temporary incarnation.
When found, the man is conducted to the altar of the god,
where the mystery of incarnation takes place. Then the man
becomes an object of veneration to his fellows, who implore
him to protect the village against the plague.5 A certain
image of Apollo, which stood in a sacred cave at Hylae near
1 Vambery, Das Tiirkenvolk, p. 158.
2 Plutarch, De defect, oracul. 46,
49. 51-
3 D. Chwolsohn, Die Ssabier unci
der Ssabismits, ii. 37 ; Lettres e~dif antes
et curieuses, xvi. 230 sq. ; Pan jab
Notes and Queries, iii. p. 171, §721;
North Indian Notes and Queries, i.
P- 3> § 4! Journal of the .Anthropo-
logical Society of Bombay, i. 103 ; S.
Mateer, The Land of Charity, p. 216 ;
id. , Native Life in Travancore, p. 94 ;
A. C. Lyall, Asiatic Studies, First
Series (London, 1899), p. 19; Bid-
dulph, Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh, p.
131 ; Pallas, Reisen in verschiedenen
Provinzen des russischen Retches, i. 9 1 ;
Vambery, Das Tiirkenvolk, p. 485 ;
Erman, Archiv fiir wissenschaftliche
Kunde von Russland, i. 377- When
the Rao of Kachh sacrifices a buffalo,
water is sprinkled between its horns ;
if it shakes its head, it is unsuitable ;
if it nods its head, it is sacrificed
(Panjab A'oles and Queries, i. p. 120,
§ 911). This is probably a modern
misinterpretation of the old custom.
4 Sir George Scott Robertson, The
Kafirs of the Hindu Kush (London,
1896), p. 423.
5 Moura, Le Royaume du Cambodge
(Paris, 1883), i. 177 sq.
i POWER OF SORCERERS 137
Magnesia, was thought to impart superhuman strength.
Sacred men, inspired by it, leaped down precipices, tore up
huge trees by the roots, and carried them on their backs
along the narrowest defiles.1 The feats performed by in-
spired dervishes belong to the same class.
Thus far we have seen that the savage, failing to discern
the limits of his ability to control nature, ascribes to himself
and to all men certain powers which we should now call
supernatural. Further, we have seen that, over and above
this general supernaturalism, some persons are supposed to
be inspired for short periods by a divine spirit, and thus
temporarily to enjoy the knowledge and power of the in-
dwelling deity. From beliefs like these it is an easy step
to the conviction that certain men are permanently possessed
by a deity, or in some other undefined way are endued with
so high a degree of supernatural power as to be ranked as
gods and to receive the homage of prayer and sacrifice.
Sometimes these human gods are restricted to purely super-
natural or spiritual functions. Sometimes they exercise
supreme political power in addition. In the latter case they
are kings as well as gods, and the government is a theocracy.
I shall give examples of both, but at the outset it is
well to note that in the sorcerer or miracle-monger pure and
simple we have, as it were, the chrysalis out of which the
full-blown god or king may sooner or later emerge. " The
real gods at Tana," says the Rev. Dr. Turner, " may be said
to be the disease-makers. It is surprising how these men
are dreaded, and how firm the belief that they have in their
hands the power of life and death." The means employed
by these sorcerers to effect their fell purpose is sympathetic
magic ; they pick up the refuse of a man's food, or other
rubbish belonging to him, and burn it with certain formalities ;
and so the man falls ill and sends a present — an embryo
sacrifice — to the sorcerer or embryo god, praying him to
stop burning the rubbish, for he believes that when it is
quite burnt he must surely die.2 Here we have all the
1 Pausanias, x. 32. 6. Coins of Series, xii. (1892), p. 89 sqq. Mr. Baker
Magnesia exhibit on the reverse a man suggests that the custom may be a relic
carrying an uprooted tree. See F. B. of ancient tree-worship.
Baker, in Numismatic Chronicle, Third 2 G. Turner, Samoa, p. 320 sqq.
138 SORCERERS AS CHIEFS chap.
1
r4
elements of religion — a god, a worshipper, prayer an
sacrifice — in process of evolution. And the same super
natural powers which tend to elevate a magician into a god,
tend also to raise him to the rank of a chief or a king.
In Melanesia "as a matter of fact the power of chiefs has
hitherto rested upon the belief in their supernatural power
derived from the spirits or ghosts with which they had inter- \
course. As this belief has failed in the Banks' Islands, for
example, some time ago, the position of a chief has tended
to become obscure ; and as this belief is now being generally
undermined a new kind of chief must needs arise, unless a
time of anarchy is to begin." l According to a native
Melanesian account, the origin of the authority of chiefs lies
entirely in the belief that they have communication with
mighty ghosts and possess that supernatural power whereby
they are able to bring the influence of the ghosts to bear.
If a chief imposed a fine, it was paid because the people
universally dreaded his ghostly power, and firmly believed
that he could inflict calamity and sickness upon such as
resisted him. As soon as any considerable number of his
people began to disbelieve in his influence with the ghosts,
his power to levy fines was shaken.2 Among the Toaripi
or Motumotu tribe of New Guinea " chiefs have not neces-
sarily supernatural powers, but a sorcerer is looked upon as
a chief. A man here, Hiovaki, is a chief because he has
power over the sea and gives calm or storm. Another,
Pitiharo, is great because his power is for plantations, and is
able to give an abundance of all kinds of food, and can
bring rain or sunshine." 3 Among the Matabele of South
Africa the witch-doctors are supposed to be on speaking
terms with spirits, and their influence is described as
tremendous ; in the time of King Lo Bengula some years
ago " their power was as great as, if not greater than, the
king's." 4 Among the Wambugwe, a Bantu people of Eastern
Africa, the original form of government was a family
republic, but the enormous power of the sorcerers, transmitted
1 R. H. Codrington, The Melanes- 3 J. Chalmers, " Toaripi," Journal
ions, p. 46. of the Antiiropological Instihite, xxvii.
2 Codrington, op. cit. p. 52. As to (1S98), p. 334.
the mana or supernatural power of 4 L. Decle, Three Years in Savage
chiefs and others, see ibid. p. 118 sqq. Africa (London, 1898), p. 154.
HUMAN GODS
J39
by inheritance, soon raised them to the rank of petty lords
or chiefs.1 The chiefs of the Wataturu, another people of
East Africa, are said to be nothing but sorcerers destitute of
any direct political influence.2 Every Alfoor village of
Northern Ceram has usually six priests, of whom the most
intelligent discharges the duties of high priest. This man
is the most powerful person in the village ; all the inhabit-
ants, even the regent, are subject to him and must do his
bidding. The common herd regard him as a higher being,
a sort of demi-god. He aims at surrounding himself with
an atmosphere of mystery, and for this purpose lives in great
seclusion, generally in the council-house of the village, where
he conceals himself from vulgar eyes behind a screen or
partition.3
If in these cases we see callow divinities, sacred kings
ind spiritual lords in the nestling stage, in others we meet
(ivith them full-fledged. Thus in the Marquesas Islands
there was a class of men who were deified in their lifetime.
They were supposed to wield a supernatural power over the
elements ; they could give abundant harvests or smite the
ground with barrenness ; and they could inflict disease or
death. Human sacrifices were offered to them to avert
their wrath. There were not many of them, at the most one
or two in each island. They lived in mystic seclusion.
Their powers were sometimes, but not always, hereditary.
A missionary has described one of these human gods from
personal observation. The god was a very old man who
lived in a large house within an enclosure. In the
house was a kind of altar, and on the beams of the house
and on the trees round it were hung human skeletons, head
down. No one entered the enclosure except the persons
dedicated to the service of the god ; only on days when
human victims were sacrificed might ordinary people
penetrate into the precinct. This human god received more
sacrifices than all the other gods ; often he would sit on a
sort of scaffold in front of his house and call for two or
1 O. Baumann, Dutch Massailand kust van Ceram," Tijdschrift van het
zur Nilquelk (Berlin, 1894), p. 187. Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genoot-
2 Baumann, op. cit. p. 173. schap, Tweede Serie, x. (1893), p.
3 J. Boot, "Korte schets der noord- 119S sq.
140 HUMAN GODS chap.
three human victims at a time. They were always brought,
for the terror he inspired was extreme. He was invoked all
over the island, and offerings were sent to him from every
side.1 Again, of the South Sea Islands in general we are
told that each island had a man who represented or per-
sonified the divinity. Such men were called gods, and their
substance was confounded with that of the deity. The
man-god was sometimes the king himself ; oftener he was a
priest or subordinate chief.'2 Tanatoa, king of Raiatea, was
deified by a certain ceremony performed at the chief temple.
" As one of the divinities of his subjects, therefore, the king
was worshipped, consulted as an oracle and had sacrifices and
prayers offered to him." 3 This was not an exceptional case.
The kings of the island regularly enjoyed divine honours,
being deified at the time of their accession.4 At his in-
auguration the king of Tahiti received a sacred girdle of red
and yellow feathers, " which not only raised him to the
highest earthly station, but identified him with their gods."
His houses were called the clouds of heaven ; the rainbow
was the name of the canoe in which he voyaged ; his voice
was spoken of as thunder, and the glare of the torches in
his dwelling as lightning ; and when the people saw them
in the evening, as they passed near his house, instead of
saying the torches were burning in the palace, they would
remark that the lightning was flashing in the clouds of
heaven. When he moved from one district to another on
the shoulders of his bearers, he was said to be flying.6 The
gods of Samoa generally appeared in animal form, but
sometimes they were permanently incarnate in men, who
gave oracles, received offerings (occasionally of human flesh),
healed the sick, answered prayers, and so on.7 In regard to
the old religion of the Fijians, and especially of the inhabit-
ants of Somosomo, it is said that " there appears to be no
1 Vincendon-Dumoulin et Desgraz, Islands, China, India, etc., i. 524 ;
lies Marquises, pp. 226, 240^7. Com- compare ibid. p. 529 sq.
pare Mathias G * * * , Lettres sur les 4 Tyerman and Bennet, op. cit. i.
lies Marquises (Paris, 1843), p. 44 sq. 529 sq.
2 Moerenhout, Voyages aux lies du 5 W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches,
Grand Ocean, i. 479; W. Ellis, Poly- iii. 108.
nesian Researches, iii. 94. 6 W. Ellis, op. cit. iii. 113 sq.
3 Tyerman and Bennet, Journal of 7 Turner, Samoa, pp. 37, 48, 57,
Voyages and Travels in the South Sea 58, 59, 73.
IN THE PACIFIC
141
certain line of demarcation between departed spirits and
gods, nor between gods and living men, for many of the
priests and old chiefs are considered as sacred persons, and
not a few of them will also claim to themselves the right of
divinity. ' I am a god,' Tuikilakila would say ; and he
believed it too." 1 In the Pelew Islands it is thought that
every god can take possession of a man and speak through
him. The possession may be either temporary or per-
manent ; in the latter case the chosen person is called a
korong. The god is free in his choice, so the position of
korong is not hereditary. After the death of a korong the
god is for some time unrepresented, until he suddenly makes
his appearance in a new Avatar. The person thus chosen
gives signs of the divine presence by behaving in a strange
way ; he gapes, runs about, and performs a number of sense-
less acts. At first people laugh at him, but his sacred
mission is in time recognised, and he is invited to assume
his proper position in the state. Generally this position is
a distinguished one and confers on him a powerful influence
over the whole community. In some of the islands the god
is political sovereign of the land ; and hence his new incar-
nation, however humble his origin, is raised to the same high
rank, and rules, as god and king, over all the other chiefs.2
The theory of the real divinity of a king is held strongly in
the Malay region. Not only is the king's person considered
sacred, but the sanctity of his body is supposed to communi-
cate itself to his regalia and to slay those who break the
royal taboos. Thus it is firmly believed that any one who
seriously offends the royal person, who imitates or touches even
for a moment the chief objects of the regalia, or who wrong-
fully makes use of the insignia or privileges of royalty will be
kena daidat, that is, struck dead by a sort of electric discharge
of that divine power which the Malays suppose to reside in
the king's person and to which they give the name of danlat
1 Hazlewood in Erskine's Cruise himself to be a god — i.e. a reincarna-
among the Islands of the Western tion of an ancestor who had grown into
Pacific, p. 246 sq. Cp. Wilkes's a god" (Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a
Narrative of the U.S. Exploring Ex- letter to the author, dated August 26,
petition, iii. S7 ; Th. Williams, Fiji 1898).
and the Fijians, i. 219 sq. ; R. H. 2 Kubary/'DieReligionderPelaucr,"
Codrington, The Melanesians, p. 122. in Bastian's Allerlei aus Volks- und
"A great chief [in Fiji] really believed Menschenkunde, i. 30 sqq.
M2 DIVINITY OF KINGS chap.
or sanctity.1 The regalia of every petty Malay state are
believed to be endowed with supernatural powers ; 2 and we
are told that " the extraordinary strength of the Malay
belief in the supernatural powers of the regalia of their
sovereigns can only be thoroughly realised after a study of
their romances, in which their kings are credited with all the
attributes of inferior gods, whose birth, as indeed every sub-
sequent act of their after-life, is attended by the most
amazing prodigies." 3 Now it is highly significant that
the Malay magician owns certain insignia which are said to
be exactly analogous to the regalia of the divine king, and
even bear the very same name.4 We may conjecture, there-
fore, that in the Malay region, and perhaps in other parts of
the world, a king's regalia are nothing but the conjuring
apparatus of his predecessor the magician". In the Boegineese
districts of Celebes, when epidemics rage among men or
cattle, or when the harvest threatens to fail, the regalia are
brought out, smeared with buffalo's blood, and carried about.
The oldest dynasties have the most regalia, and the holiest
regalia consist of relics of the bodies of former princes,
which are kept in golden caskets wrapt in silk. The
people attach so much weight to the regalia that who-
ever is in possession of them is popularly held to be the
reigning prince. In insurrections the first effort made by
the rebels is to seize the regalia, for if they can only make
themselves masters of these miraculous objects, the authority
of the sovereign is gone.5 In Cambodia the regalia are re-
garded as a palladium on which the existence of the kingdom
depends ; they are committed to Brahmans for safe-keeping.0
Among the Battas of Central Sumatra there is a prince
who bears the hereditary title of Singa Mangaradja and
is worshipped as a deity. He reigns over Bakara, a
1 W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, p. mentenfeest van Gantarang (Zuid-Cel-
23 sq. ebes)," Mededeelingen van wege het
2 T. T- Newbold, Political and NederlandscheZendelinggenootschap,x\x.
Statistical Account of the British Settle- (l875), PP- 344-35 1 5 G- K- Nie"
ments in the Straits of Malacca, ii. mann- "De Boegineezen en Makas-
!Q, saren, " Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en
o 01 ., / 'olkcnkunde van Nederlandsch Indie,
6 Skeat, op. at. p. 29. ... , DO ,
r r xxxvui. (1889), p. 270 sq.
4 Skeat> "/• aL P- 59- e A. Bastian Volkerstdmme am
■r' G. J. Harrebomee, " Een orna- Brahmaputra, p. xi.
i AMONG THE MALA YS 143
village on the south-western shore of Lake Toba ; but
his worship is diffused among the tribes both near and
far. All sorts of strange stories are told of him. It is
said that he was seven years in his mother's womb, and
thus came into the world a seven-years-old child ; that he
has a black hairy tongue the sight of which is fatal, so that
in speaking he keeps his mouth as nearly shut as possible
and gives all his orders in writing. Sometimes he remains
seven months without eating, or sleeps for three months
together. He can make the sun to shine or the rain to fall
at his pleasure ; hence the people pray to him for a good
harvest, and worshippers hasten to Bakara from all sides
with offerings in the hope of thereby securing his miraculous
aid. Wherever he goes, the gongs are solemnly beaten and
the public peace must not be broken. He is said to eat
neither pork nor dog's flesh.1 The Battas used to cherish a
superstitious veneration for the Sultan of Minangkabau,
and showed a blind submission to his relations and emis-
saries, real or pretended, when these persons appeared
among them for the purpose of levying contributions. Even
when insulted and put in fear of their lives they made
no attempt at resistance ; for they believed that their affairs
would never prosper, that their rice would be blighted and
their buffaloes die, and that they would remain under a sort
of spell if they offended these sacred messengers.2 In time
of public calamity, as during war or pestilence, some of the
Molucca Islanders used to celebrate a festival of heaven. If
no good result followed, they bought a slave, took him at the
next festival to the place of sacrifice, and set him on a raised
place under a certain bamboo-tree. This tree represented
heaven, and had been honoured as its image at previous festi-
vals. The portion of the sacrifice which had previously been
offered to heaven was now given to the slave, who ate and drank
1 G. K. Nfiemann], " Bijdrage tot July 18S4, p. 85 ; id., Handleiding
de Kennis van den Godsdienst der voor de vergelijkende Volkenkunde van
Bataks," Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Nederlandsch - Indie (Leyden, 1893),
Indie, iii. Serie, iv. (1870), p. 289 pp. 369 sq., 612 ; von Brenner,
sq. ; B. Hagen, " Beitrage zur Kennt- Besuch bei den Kannibalen Snmatras
I niss der Battareligion," Tijdschrift voor (Wiirzburg, 1894), p. 340.
: Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde,
1 xxviii. 537 sq. ; G. A. Wilken, 2 Marsden, His/cry of Sumatra, p.
' " Het animisme," De Indische Gids, 376^/.
144 DIVINITY OF KINGS chap.
it in the name and stead of heaven. Henceforth the slave was
well treated, kept for the festivals of heaven, and employed
to represent heaven and receive the offerings in its name.1
A peculiarly bloodthirsty monarch of Burma, by name
Badonsachen, whose very countenance reflected the inbred
ferocity of his nature, and under whose reign more victims
perished by the executioner than by the common enemy,
conceived the notion that he was something more than
mortal, and that this high distinction had been granted him
as a reward for his numerous good works. Accordingly he
laid aside the title of king and aimed at making himself a
god. With this view, and in imitation of Buddha, who,
before being advanced to the rank of a divinity, had quitted
his royal palace and seraglio and retired from the world,
Badonsachen withdrew from his palace to an immense
pagoda, the largest in the empire, which he had been
engaged in constructing for many years. Here he held
conferences with the most learned monks, in which he
sought to persuade them that the five thousand years
assigned for the observance of the law of Buddha were
now elapsed, and that he himself was the god who was
destined to appear after that period, and to abolish the old
law by substituting his own. But to his great mortification
many of the monks undertook to demonstrate the contrary ;
and this disappointment, combined with his love of power
and his impatience under the restraints of an ascetic life,
quickly disabused him of his imaginary godhead, and drove
him back to his palace and his harem.2 There is a
special language devoted to the sacred person and at-
tributes of the king of Siam, and it must be used by all
who speak to or of him. Even the natives have difficulty
in mastering this peculiar vocabulary. The hairs of the
monarch's head, the soles of his feet, the breath of his body,
indeed every single detail of his person, both outward and
inward, have particular names. When he eats or drinks,
sleeps or walks, a special word indicates that these acts are
being performed by the sovereign, and such words cannot
1 F. Valentyn, Oud en nieuw Oost- 2 Sangermano, Description of the
Indien, iii. 7 sq. Burmese Empire (reprinted at Ran-
goon, 1S85), p. 6l sq.
IN THE EAST
145
possibly be applied to the acts of any other person whatever.
There is no word in the Siamese language by which any
creature of higher rank or greater dignity than a monarch
can be described ; and the missionaries, when they speak of
God, are forced to use the native word for king.1 In
Tonquin every village chooses its guardian spirit, often in
the form of an animal, as a dog, tiger, cat, or serpent.
Sometimes a living person is selected as patron-divinity.
Thus a beggar persuaded the people of a village that he was
their guardian spirit ; so they loaded him with honours and
entertained him with their best.2
In India " every king is regarded as little short of a
present god." 3 The Hindoo law-book of Manu goes farther
and says that " even an infant king must not be despised from
an idea that he is a mere mortal ; for he is a great deity in
human form." 4 The spiritual power of a Brahman priest is
described as unbounded. " His anger is as terrible as that of
the gods. His blessing makes rich, his curse withers. Nay,
more, he is himself actually worshipped as a god. No marvel,
1 E. Young, The Kingdom of the
Yellow Robe (Westminster, 1898), p.
142 sq. Similarly, special sets of terms
are or have been used with reference
to persons of royal blood in Burma
(Forbes, British Burma, p. 71 sq. ;
Shway Yoe, The Burman, ii. 118
sqq.), Cambodia (Lemire, Coehinchine
francaise et le royaume de Cambodge, p.
447), Travancore (S. Mateer, Native
Life in Travaneore, p. 129), the Pelew
Islands (K. Semper, Die Palau-Inseln,
p. 309 sq.), Samoa (J. E. Newell,
" Chief 's language in Samoa," Trans-
actions of the Ninth International Con-
gress of Orientalists, London, 1893, "•
784-799), the Maldives (Fr. Pyrard,
Voyage to the East Indies, the Ma/dives,
the Moluccas, and Brazil, i. 226), in
some parts of Madagascar (J. Sibree, in
The Antananarivo Annual and Mada-
gascar Magazine, No. xi., Christmas
1887, P- 3!Q sqq. ; id., in Journal of
the Anthropological Ins tit tit e, xxi.
(1892), p. 215 sqq.), and among the
Natchez Indians of North America
(Du Pratz, History of Louisiana, p.
328). When we remember that special
vocabularies of this sort have been
VOL. I
employed with regard to kings or
chiefs who are known to have enjoyed
a divine or semi-divine character, as
in Tahiti (see above, p. 140), Fiji
(Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, i. 37),
and Tonga (Mariner, Tonga Islands,
ii. 79), we shall be inclined to surmise
that the existence of such a practice
anywhere is indicative of a tendency to
deify royal personages, who are thus
marked off from their fellows. This
would not necessarily apply to a custom
of using a special dialect or particular
forms of speech in addressing social
superiors generally, such as prevails
in Java (Raffles, History of Java, i.
310, 366 sqq., London, 1817), and
Bali (Friederich, " Voorloopig Verslag
van het eiland Bali," Verhandelingen
van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van
Kunsten en Wetenschappeti, xxii. 4 ;
J. Jacobs, Fenigen tijd onder de Baliers,
P- 36).
- Bastian, Die Vblker des bstlicheu
Asien, iv. 383.
3 Monier Williams, Religious Life
and Thought in India, p. 259.
4 The Laws of Manu, vii. 8, trans,
by G. Biihler.
146 HUMAN GODS IN INDIA chap.
no prodigy in nature is believed to be beyond the limits of his
power to accomplish. If the priest were to threaten to bring
down the sun from the sky or arrest it in its daily course in
the heavens, no villager would for a moment doubt his
ability to do so." 1 There is said to be a sect in Orissa who
worship the Queen of England as their chief divinity. And
to this day in India all living persons remarkable for great
strength or valour or for supposed miraculous powers run the
risk of being worshipped as gods. Thus, a sect in the Pun-
jaub worshipped a deity whom they called Nikkal Sen. This
Nikkal Sen was no other than the redoubted General Nichol-
son, and nothing that the general could do or say damped
the ardour of his adorers. The more he punished them, the
greater grew the religious awe with which they worshipped
him.2 At Benares at the present time a celebrated deity is
incarnate in the person of a Hindoo gentleman who rejoices
in the euphonious name of Swami Bhaskaranandaji Saraswati,
and looks uncommonly like the late Cardinal Manning, only
more ingenuous. His eyes beam with kindly human interest,
and he takes what is described as an innocent pleasure in
the divine honours paid him by his confiding worshippers.3
A Hindoo sect, which has many representatives in Bombay
and Central India, holds that its spiritual chiefs or Maharajas,
as they are called, are representatives or even actual in-
carnations on earth of the god Krishna. Hence in the
temples where the Maharajas do homage to the idols, men
and women do homage to the Maharajas, prostrating them-
selves at their feet, offering them incense, fruits, and flowers,
and waving lights before them, as the Maharajas themselves
do before the images of the gods. One mode of worship-
ping Krishna is by swinging his images in swings. Hence,
in every district presided over by a Maharaja, the women
are wont to worship not Krishna but the Maharaja by
swinging him in pendulous seats. The leavings of his food,
1 Monier Williams, op. cit. p. 457. to reflect that in our less liberal land
2 Monier Williams, op. cit. p. 2595^. the divine Swami would probably be
3 I have borrowed the description of consigned to the calm seclusion of a
this particular deity from the Rev. Dr. gaol or a madhouse. The difference
A. M. Fairbairn, who knows him between a god and a madman or a
personally {Contemporary Review, criminal is often merely a question 0
June 1899, p. 768). It is melancholy latitude and longitude.
1
i HUMAN GODS IN INDIA 147
the dust on which he treads, the water in which his dirty
linen is washed, are all eagerly swallowed by his devotees,
who worship his wooden shoes, and prostrate themselves
before his seat and his painted portraits. And as Krishna
looks down from heaven with most favour on such as
minister to the wants of his successors and vicars on earth,
a peculiar rite called Self-devotion has been instituted,
whereby his faithful worshippers make over their bodies,
their souls, and, what is perhaps still more important, their
worldly substance to his adorable incarnations; and women
are taught to believe that the highest bliss for themselves
and their families is to be attained by yielding themselves
to the embraces of those beings in whom the divine nature
mysteriously coexists with the form and even the appetites
of true humanity.1
Amongst the Todas, a pastoral people of the Neilgherry
Hills of Southern India, the dairy is a sanctuary, and the
milkman who attends to it is a god. On being asked
whether the Todas salute the sun, one of these divine milk-
men replied, " Those poor fellows do so, but I," tapping his
chest, " I, a god ! why should I salute the sun ? " Every
one, even his own father, prostrates himself before the milk-
man, and no one would dare to refuse him anything. No
human being, except another milkman, may touch him ; and
he gives oracles to all who consult him, speaking with the
voice of a god."
The ancient Egyptians, far from restricting their adora-
tion to cats and dogs and such small deer, very liberally
extended it to men. One of these human deities resided at
the village of Anabis, and burnt sacrifices were offered to
him on the altars ; after which, says Porphyry, he would eat
his dinner just as if he were an ordinary mortal.3 Down to
1 Monier Williams, op. cit. p. 136 3 Porphyry, De Abstinentia, iv. 9 ;
II sq. These Indian deities and miracle- *cp. Minucius Felix, Octavius, 29. The
I workers are sometimes found among the titles of the nomarchs or provincial
II lowest of the people ; one of them, governors of Egypt seem to show that
jj for example, was a cotton-bleacher, they were all originally worshipped as
tl another was the son of a carpenter gods by their subjects (A. Wiede-
! (Monier Williams, op. cit. p. 268). mann, Die Religion der alten Aegypter,
I 2 Marshall, Travels among the Todas, p. 93; id., " Menschenvergotterung
j pp. 136,137; cp. pp. 141, 142 ; Metz, im alten Aegypten," Am Urquell,
I Tribes of the Neilgherry Hills, p. 19 sqq. N.F., i. (1897), p. 290^/.).
MS HUMAN GODS IN AFRICA chap.
a few years ago, when his spiritual reign on earth was brought
to an abrupt end by the carnal weapons of English marines
and bluejackets, the king of Benin was the chief object of
worship in his dominions. " He occupies a higher post
here than the Pope does in Catholic Europe ; for he is not
only God's vicegerent upon earth, but a god himself, whose
subjects both obey and adore him as such, although I believe
their adoration to arise rather from fear than love." l The
king of Iddah told the English officers of the Niger Expedi-
tion, " God made me after his own image ; I am all the same
as God ; and he appointed me a king." 2 The Mashona of
Southern Africa informed their bishop that they had once
had a god, but that the Matabele had driven him away.
" This last was in reference to a curious custom in some
villages of keeping a man they called their god. He seemed
to be consulted by the people and had presents given to him.
There was one at a village belonging to a chief Magondi, in
the old days. We were asked not to fire off any guns near
the village, or we should frighten him away." 3 " In the
Makalaka hills, to the west of Matabeleland, the natives all
acknowledge there dwells a god whom they name Ngwali,
much worshipped by the bushmen and Makalakas, and
feared even by the Matabele : even Lo Bengula paid tribute
and sent presents to him often. This individual has only
been seen by a few of those who live close by, and who
doubtless profit by the numberless offerings made to this
strange being ; but the god never dies ; and the position is
supposed to be hereditary in the one family who are the
intermediaries for and connection between Ngwali and the
outer world." 4 Among the Hovas and other tribes of Mada-
1 J. Adams, Sketches taken during is almost inseparable from any attempt
ten Voyages to Africa, p. 29; id., to define with philosophic precision the
Remarks on the Country extending front profound mystery of incarnation.
Cape Palmas to the River Congo (Lon- 3 G. W. H. Knight-Bruce, Memories
don, 1823), p. in. Compare, "My of Mashonaland (London and New
Wanderings in Africa," by an F.R.G.S. York, 1895), p. 43; id., in Proceed-
[R. F. Burton], Eraser's Mazagine, lxvii. ings of the Royal Geographical Society,
(April 1863), p. 414. 1890, p. 346 sq.
2 Allen and Thomson, Narrative of 4 Ch. L. Norris Newman, Matabele-
the Expedition to the River Niger in land and how we got it (London, 1895),
1S41, i. 288. A slight mental con- p. 167 sq. These particulars were
fusion may perhaps be detected in this communicated to Captain Newman by
utterance of the dark-skinned deity. Mr. W. E. Thomas, son of the first
But such confusion, or rather obscurity, missionary to Matabeleland.
i HUMAN GODS AMONG CHRISTIANS 149
gascar there is said to be a deep sense of the divinity of kings ;
and down to the acceptance of Christianity by the late queen,
the Hova sovereigns were regularly termed "the visible God."1
The chiefs of the Betsileo in Madagascar " are considered as
far above the common people and are looked upon almost
as if they were gods." " For the chiefs are supposed to have
power as regards the words they utter, not, however, merely
the power which a king possesses, but power like that of
God ; a power which works of itself on account of its in-
herent virtue, and not power exerted through soldiers and
strong servants." 2
Christianity itself has not uniformly escaped the taint of
I these unhappy delusions ; indeed it has often been sullied
by the extravagances of vain pretenders to a divinity equal
to or even surpassing that of its great Founder. In the
second century Montanus the Phrygian claimed to be the
incarnate Trinity, uniting in his single person God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.3 Nor is
this an isolated case, the exorbitant pretension of a single
ill-balanced mind. From the earliest times down to the
present day many sects have believed that Christ, nay God
himself, is incarnate in every fully initiated Christian, and
they have carried this belief to its logical conclusion by
adoring each other. Tertullian records that this was done
by his fellow-Christians at Carthage in the second century ;
the disciples of St. Columba worshipped him as an embodi-
ment of Christ ; and in the eighth century Elipandus of
Toledo spoke of Christ as " a god among gods," meaning
that all believers were gods just as truly as Jesus himself.
The adoration of each other was customary among the
Albigenses, and is noticed hundreds of times in the records
of the Inquisition at Toulouse in the early part of the
fourteenth century. It is still practised by the Paulicians
of Armenia and the Bogomiles about Moscow. The
Paulicians, indeed, presume to justify their faith, if not their
1 Rev. J. Sibree, in Antananarivo gascar Magazine, No. xi. (1887), p. 307 ;
Annual and Madagascar Alagazine, Journal of the Anthropological Insti-
No. xi. (1887), p. 302 ; id., in Journal tute, xxi. (1892), p. 225.
of the Anthropological Institute, xxi.
(1892), p. 218. 3 A. Harnack, Lehrbuch der Dog-
2 Antananarivo Annual and Mada- mengeschichte, i. 321.
i5o BRETHREN OF THE FREE SPIRIT chap.
practice, by the authority of St. Paul, who said, " It is not I
that speak, but Christ that dwelleth in me."1 In the
thirteenth century there arose a sect called the Brethren and
Sisters of the Free Spirit, who held that by long and assidu-
ous contemplation any man might be united to the deity in
an ineffable manner and become one with the source and
parent of all things, and that he who had thus ascended to
God and been absorbed in his beatific essence, actually formed
part of the Godhead, was the Son of God in the same sense
and manner with Christ himself, and enjoyed thereby a
glorious immunity from the trammels of all laws human and
divine. Inwardly transported by this blissful persuasion,
though outwardly presenting in their aspect and manners a
shocking air of lunacy and distraction, the sectaries roamed
from place to place, attired in the most fantastic apparel and
begging their bread with wild shouts and clamour, spurning
indignantly every kind of honest labour and industry as an
obstacle to divine contemplation and to the ascent of the
soul towards the Father of spirits. In all their excursions
they were followed by women with whom they lived on
terms of the closest familiarity. Those of them who con-
ceived they had made the greatest proficiency in the higher
spiritual life dispensed with the use of clothes altogether in
their assemblies, looking upon decency and modesty as
marks of inward corruption, characteristics of a soul that still
grovelled under the dominion of the flesh and had not yet
been elevated into communion with the divine spirit, its
centre and source. Sometimes their progress towards this
mystic communion was accelerated by the Inquisition,
and they expired in the flames, not merely with un-
clouded serenity, but with the most triumphant feelings of
cheerfulness and joy.2 In the same century a Bohemian
woman named Wilhelmina, whose head had been turned by
brooding over some crazy predictions about a coming age of
the Holy Ghost, persuaded herself and many people besides
that the Holy Ghost had actually become incarnate in her
person for the salvation of a great part of mankind. She
1 F. C. Conybeare, "The History kindly lent me a proof of this article.
of Christmas," American Journal of 2 Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History
Theology, January 1S99. Mr. Conybeare (London, 1819), iii. 278 sqq.
i TRANSMIGRA TION OF DEITY 1 5 1
died at Milan in the year 1281 in the most fragrant odour
of sanctity, and her memory was held in the highest venera-
tion by a numerous following and even honoured with
religious worship both public and private.1 About twenty
years ago a new sect was founded at Patiala in the Punjaub
by a wretched creature named Hakim Singh, who lived in
extreme poverty and filth, gave himself out to be a re-
incarnation of Jesus Christ, and offered to baptize the
missionaries who attempted to argue with him. He pro-
posed shortly to destroy the British Government, and to
convert and conquer the world. His gospel was accepted
by four thousand believers in his immediate neighbourhood.2
Cases like these verge on, if they do not cross, the wavering
and uncertain line which divides the raptures of religion
from insanity. How ill do such wild ravings and blas-
phemous pretensions contrast with the simple and sober
claim of the carpenter of Nazareth to be the Creator and
Governor of the universe !
Sometimes, at the death of the human incarnation, the
divine spirit transmigrates into another man. In the king-
dom of Kaffa, in Eastern Africa, the heathen part of the
people worship a spirit called Debce, to whom they offer
prayer and sacrifice, and whom they invoke on all important
occasions. This spirit is incarnate in the grand magician or
pope, a person of great wealth and influence, ranking almost
with the king, and wielding the spiritual, as the king wields
the temporal power. It happened that, shortly before the
arrival of a Christian missionary in the kingdom, this African
pope died, and the priests, fearing lest the missionary might
assume the position vacated by the deceased prelate, declared
that the Debce had passed into the king, who henceforth,
uniting the spiritual with the temporal power, reigned as
god and king.3 Before beginning to work at the salt-pans
in a Laosian village, the workmen offer sacrifice to a local
divinity. This divinity is incarnate in a woman and trans-
migrates at her death into another woman.4 In Bhotan the
1 Mosheim, op. cit. iii. 288 sq. anni di missione tie IP alta Etiopia
2 Ibbetson, Outlines of Punjab Eth- (Rome and Milan, 1888), v. 53 sq,
nography (Calcutta, 1883), p. 123. 4 E. Aymonier, Notes sur le Laos
:i G. Massaja, / miei trentacinqne (Saigon, 1885), p. 141 sq.
152 GRAND LAMAS chap.
spiritual head of the government is a person called the
Dhurma Raja, who is supposed to be a perpetual incarnation
of the deity. At his death the new incarnate god shows
himself in an infant by the refusal of his mother's milk and
a preference for that of a cow.1 The Buddhist Tartars
believe in a great number of living Buddhas, who officiate as
Grand Lam;is at the head of the most important monasteries.
When one of these Grand Lamas dies his disciples do not
sorrow, for they know that he will soon reappear, being born
in the form of an infant. Their only anxiety is to discover
the place of his birth. If at this time they see a rainbow
they take it as a sign sent them by the departed Lama to
euide them to his cradle. Sometimes the divine infant him-
self reveals his identity. " I am the Grand Lama," he says,
" the living Buddha of such and such a temple. Take me
to my old monastery. I am its immortal head." In what-
ever way the birthplace of the Buddha is revealed, whether
by the Buddha's own avowal or by the sign in the sky, tents
are struck, and the joyful pilgrims, often headed by the king
or one of the most illustrious of the royal family, set forth
to find and bring home the infant god. Generally he is
born in Tibet, the holy land, and to reach him the caravan
has often to traverse the most frightful deserts. When at
last they find the child they fall down and worship him.
Before, however, he is acknowledged as the Grand Lama
whom they seek he must satisfy them of his identity. He
is asked the name of the monastery of which he claims to be
the head, how far off it is, and how many monks live in it ;
he must also describe the habits of the deceased Grand
Lama and the manner of his death. Then various articles,
as prayer-books, tea-pots, and cups, are placed before him,
and he has to point out those used by himself in his previous
life. If he does so without a mistake his claims are
admitted, and he is conducted in triumph to the monastery.2
1 Robinson, Descriptive Account of don, 1895), P- 245 sa1- Compare G.
Assam (London and Calcutta, 1841), Timkovvski, Travels of the Russian
p. 342 sq. ; Asiatic Researches, xv. 146. J\ fission through Mongolia to China, i.
2 Hue, Souvenirs (fun voyage dans 23-25. In the Delta of the Niger the
la Tarlarie et le Thibet, i. 279 sqq., souls of little negro babies are identified
ed. i2mo. For more details, see L. A. by means of a similar test. An assort-
Waddell, Tin Buddhism of 'Tibet (Lon- ment of small articles that belonged
i THE DALAI LAMA 153
At the head of all the Lamas is the Dalai Lama of Lhasa,
the Rome of Tibet. He is regarded as a living god, and at
death his divine and immortal spirit is born again in a child.
According to some accounts the mode of discovering the
Dalai Lama is similar to the method, already described, of
discovering an ordinary Grand Lama. Other accounts speak
of an election by lot. Wherever he is born, the trees and
plants put forth green leaves ; at his bidding flowers bloom
and springs of water rise ; and his presence diffuses heavenly
blessings. His palace stands on a commanding height ; its
gilded cupolas are seen sparkling in the sunlight for miles.1
In 1 66 1 or 1662 Fathers Grueber and d'Orville, on thc'r
return from Pekin to Europe, spent two months at Lhasa
waiting for a caravan, and they report that the Grand Lama
was worshipped as a true and living god, that he received
the title of the Eternal and Heavenly Father, and that he
was believed to have risen from the dead no less than seven
times. He lived withdrawn from the business of the world
in the recesses of his palace, where, seated aloft on a cushion
and precious carpets, he received the homage of his adorers
in a chamber screened from the garish eye of day, but glitter-
ing with gold and silver, and lit up by the blaze of a
multitude of torches. His worshippers, with heads bowed
to the earth, attested their veneration by kissing his feet,
and even bribed the attendant Lamas with great sums to
give them a little of the natural secretions of his divine
person, which they either swallowed with their food or wore
about their necks as an amulet that fortified them against
the assaults of every ailment.2
Issuing from the sultry valleys upon the lofty tableland
of the Colombian Andes, the Spanish conquerors were
to deceased members of the family is Erman, Travels in Siberia, ii. 303 sqq. ;
shown to the new baby, and the first Journal of the Roy. Geogr. Soc. xxxviii.
thing he grabsat identities him. "Why, (1S68), pp. 168, 169; Proceedings of
he's uncle John," they say ; " see ! he the Roy. Geogr. Soc. N. S., vii. (1885), p.
knows his own pipe." Or, "That's 67. In the Journal Roy. Geog. Soc,
cousin Emma ; see ! she knows her I.e., the Lama in question is called the
market calabash " (Miss M. H. Kings- Lama Guru ; but the context shows
ley, Travels in West Africa, p. 493). that he is the great Lama of Lhasa.
1 Hue, op. cit. ii. 279. 347 sq. ; 2 Thevenot, Relations des divers 7ioy-
'Me'mers,Gesc/iichlederReligionen,i.335 ages, iv. Partie (Paris, 1672), " Voyage
sq.; Georgi, Beschreibung alter Nation- a la Chine des PP. I. Grueber et
en des Russischen Reichs, p. 415 ; A. d'Orville," pp. I sq., 22.
1 54 DIVINE KINGS chap.
astonished to find, in contrast to the savage hordes they had
left in the sweltering jungles below, a people enjoying a fair
degree of civilisation, practising agriculture, and living under
a government which Humboldt has compared to the theo-
cracies of Tibet and Japan. These were the Chibchas,
Muyscas, or Mozcas, divided into two kingdoms, with
capitals at Bogota and Tunja, but united apparently in
spiritual allegiance to the high pontiff of Sogamozo or Iraca.
By a long and ascetic novitiate, this ghostly ruler was re-
puted to have acquired such sanctity that the waters and the
rain obeyed him, and the weather depended on his will.1
Weather kings are common in Africa. Thus the Waganda
of Central Africa believed in a god of Lake Nyanza, who
sometimes took up his abode in a man or woman. The
incarnate god was much feared by all the people, including
the king and the chiefs. When the mystery of incarnation
had taken place, the man, or rather the god, removed about
a mile and a half from the margin of the lake, and there
awaited the appearance of the new moon before he engaged
in his sacred duties. From the moment that the crescent
moon appeared faintly in the sky, the king and all his
subjects were at the command of the divine man, or Lubare,
as he was called, who reigned supreme not only in matters of
faith and ritual, but also in questions of war and state policy.
He was consulted as an oracle ; by his word he could inflict
or heal sickness, withhold rain, and cause famine. Large
presents were made him when his advice was sought.2 Often
the king himself is supposed to control the weather. The
king of Loango is honoured by his people " as though he were
a god ; and he is called Sambee and Pango, which mean god.
They believe that he can let them have rain when he likes ;
and once a year, in December, which is the time they want
rain, the people come to beg of him to grant it to them."
1 Alex. von. Humboldt, Researches alien Amerika, ii. 204 sq.
concerning the Institutions and Monti- 2 R. W. Felkin, " Notes on the Wa-
ments of the Ancient Inhabitants of ganda Tribe of Central Africa," Pro-
America, ii. 106 sqq. ; Waitz, Anthro- ceedings of the Royal Society of Edin-
pologie der Naturvolker, iv. 352 sqq. ; burgh, xiii. (1885-86), p. 762; C. T.
J. G. Midler, Gcschichte der Ameri- Wilson and R. W. Felkin, Uganda
kanischen Urreligionen, p. 430 sq. ; and the Egyptian Soudan, i. 206 ;
Martius, Znr Ethnographic Amerikas, J. Macdonald, Religion and Myth,
p. 455 ; Bastian, Die Culturlander des p. 15 sq.
i IN AFRICA 155
On this occasion the king, standing on his throne, shoots an
arrow into the air, which is supposed to bring on rain.1 Much
the same is said of the king of Mombaza.2 The Wanyoro of
Central Africa have a great respect for the dispensers of rain,
whom they load with a profusion of gifts. The great dis-
penser, he who has absolute and uncontrollable power over
the rain, is the king ; but he can divide his power with other
persons, so that the benefit may be distributed over various
parts of the kingdom.3 The king of Ouiteva, in Eastern
Africa, ranks with the deity ; " indeed, the Caffres acknow-
ledge no other gods than their monarch, and to him they
address those prayers which other nations are wont to prefer
to heaven." " Hence these unfortunate beings, under the
persuasion that their king is a deity, exhaust their utmost
means and ruin themselves in gifts to obtain with more
facility what they need. Thus, prostrate at his feet, they
implore of him, when the weather long continues dry, to
intercede with heaven that they may have rain ; and when
too much rain has fallen, that they may have fair weather ;
thus, also, in case of winds, storms, and everything, they
would either deprecate or implore."4 Amongst the Barotse,
a tribe on the upper Zambesi, " there is an old but waning
belief that a chief is a demigod, and in heavy thunderstorms
the Barotse flock to the chief's yard for protection from the
lightning. I have been greatly distressed at seeing them
fall on their knees before the chief, entreating him to open
the water-pots of heaven and send rain upon their gardens."
" The king's servants declare themselves to be invincible,
because they are the servants of God (meaning the king)." 5
In Matabeleland the rainy season falls in November, Decem-
ber, January, and February. For several weeks before the
rain sets in, the clouds gather in heavy banks, dark and
1 "The Strange Adventures of (London and New York, 1891), ii. 57,
Andrew Battel," in Pinkerton's Voyages cp. i. 134.
. f T ' ' ,:? , ' rovai ' 1S~ 4 dos Santos, " History of Eastern
tory ot Doango, Kakongo, and other —, ,. . „ . ~ , %r ,
-,-• j • »/• »■ n- 1 • Ethiopia, in Pinkerton, I ova pes and
Kingdoms in Africa, in Pinkerton, xvi. ~ % . ,„ ,„ ' &
_„_ -r, ,-. .„. , „ ,,'. J ravels, xvi. 682, 687 sq.
577; Dapper, Description de I Afnqite, ' 1
p. 335. 5 F. S. Arnot, Garengauze ; or,
2 Ogilby, Africa, p. 615; Dapper, Seven Years' Pioneer Mission Work in
op. cit. p. 400. Central Africa, London, N.D. (preface
3 G. Casati, Ten Years in Equatoria dated March 1889), p. 78.
156 KINGS RESPONSIBLE chap.
lowering. Then the king is busy with his magicians com-
pounding potions of wondrous strength to make the labour-
ing clouds discharge their pent-up burden on the thirsty earth.
He may be seen gazing at every black cloud, for his people
flock from all parts to beg rain from him, " their rain-maker,"
for their parched fields ; and they thank and praise him when
a heavy rain has fallen.1
The Dyaks of Sarawak believed that their famous English
ruler, Rajah Brooke, was endowed with a certain magical
virtue which, if properly applied, could render the rice-crops
abundant. Hence when he visited a tribe, they used to
bring him the seed which they intended to sow next year,
and he fertilised it by shaking over it the women's necklaces,
which had been previously dipped in a special mixture.
And when he entered a village, the women would wash and
bathe his feet, first with water, and then with the milk of a
young cocoa-nut, and lastly with water again, and all this
water which had touched his person they preserved for the
purpose of distributing it on their farms, believing that it
ensured an abundant harvest. Tribes which were too far
off for him to visit used to send him a small piece of white
cloth and a little gold or silver, and when these things had
been impregnated by his generative virtue they buried them
in their fields, and confidently expected a heavy crop.
Once when a European remarked that the rice-crops of the
Samban tribe were thin, the chief immediately replied that
they could not be otherwise, since Rajah Brooke had never
visited them, and he begged that Mr. Brooke might be in-
duced to visit his tribe and remove the sterility of their
land.2 The chief of Mowat, New Guinea, is believed to have
the power of affecting the growth of crops for good or
ill, and of coaxing the dugong and turtle to come from all
parts and allow themselves to be taken.3 Similarly the
Greeks of the Homeric age thought that the reign of a
good king caused the black earth to bring forth wheat and
barley, the trees to be loaded with fruit, the flocks to
1 E. A. Maund, " Zambezia, the new 3 E. Beardmore, "The Natives of
British Possession in Central South Mowat, Daudai, New Guinea," Journal
Africa," Proceedings of the Royal Geo- of the Anthropological Institute, xix.
graphical Society, 1890, p. 651. (1890), p. 464.
2 H. Low, Sarawak, p. 259 sq.
FOR WEATHER AND CROPS 157
multiply, and the sea to yield fish.1 " It was the belief
among the ancient Irish that when their kings acted in con-
formity with the institutions of their ancestors, the seasons
were favourable, and that the earth yielded its fruit in
abundance ; but when they violated these laws, that plague,
famine, and inclemency of weather were the result." 2
Notions of the same sort seem to have lingered in remote
districts of Scotland down to the eighteenth century ;
for when Dr. Johnson travelled in the Highlands it was
still held that the return of the laird to Dunvegan, after
any considerable absence, produced a plentiful capture of
herring.3
In many places the king is punished if rain does not fall
and the crops do not turn out well. Thus, in some parts of
West Africa, when prayers and offerings presented to the
king have failed to procure rain, his subjects bind him with
ropes and take him by force to the grave of his forefathers,
that he may obtain from them the needed rain.4 It appears
that the Scythians also, when food was scarce, put their
king in bonds.0 The Banjars in West Africa ascribe to
their king the power of causing rain or fine weather. So
long as the weather is fine they load him with presents of
grain and cattle. But if long drought or rain threatens to
spoil the crops, they insult and beat him till the weather
changes.0 When the harvest fails or the surf on the coast is
too heavy to allow of fishing, the people of Loango accuse
their king of a "bad heart" and depose him.' On the
Grain Coast the high priest or fetish king, who bears the
title of Bodio, is responsible for the health of the community,
the fertility of the earth, and the abundance of fish in the
sea and rivers ; and if the country suffers in any of these
1 Homer, Odyssey, xix. 109- 114. Argon, ii. 1248: koX 'HpoSupos |^ws
The passage was pointed out to me by irepl tGiv BecrfiQv tov llpofx-qdius ravra.
my friend W. Ridgeway. elvai yap avrbv ~Zkv6Qiv (3aai\£a tprjai • ical
2 J. O'Donovan, The Book of Rights m dvvdfievov wap^xeLV ™?s virrjKdots to.
(Dublin, 1847), p. 8, note. Compare (Tnrrjdeia, 81a rbv KaXovfievov 'Aerbv
Berenger-Feraud, Superstitions et sur- "on/ibv imicMfriv to. Trebla, Se6rji>ai
„„ viro tQv "ZkvOuiv.
vivances, 1. 492.
3 S. Johnson, Journey to the Western G H. Hecquard, Reise an der Kiiste
Islands (Baltimore, 1S15), p. 115. und in das fnnere von West Afrika,
4 Labat, Relation historique de P- 7°-
FEthiopie occidental, ii. 172-176. " Bastian, Die Deutsche Expedition
5 Schol. on Apollonius Rhodius, an der Loango- Kiiste, i. 354, ii. 230.
158 KINGS RESPONSIBLE chap.
respects the Bodio is deposed from his office.1 So the Bur-
gundians of old deposed their king if the crops failed.2 In
Ussukuma, a great district on the southern bank of the
Victoria Nyanza, " the rain and locust question is part and
parcel of the Sultan's government. He, too, must know how-
to make rain and drive away the locusts. If he and his
medicine -men are unable to accomplish this, his whole
existence is at stake in times of distress. On a certain
occasion, when the rain so greatly desired by the people
did not come, the Sultan was simply driven out (in Ututwa,
near Nassa). The people, in fact, hold that rulers must
have power over Nature and her phenomena." Similarly
among the Antimores of Madagascar the chiefs are held
responsible for the operation of the laws of nature. Hence
if the land is smitten with a blight or devastated by
clouds of locusts, if the cows yield little milk, or fatal epi-
demics rage among the people, the chief is not only deposed
but stripped of his property and banished, because they say
that under a good chief such things ought not to happen.4
Some peoples have gone further and killed their
kings in times of drought and scarcity. Thus, among the
Latukas of Central Africa, when the crops are withering in
the fields and all the efforts of the chief to bring down rain
have proved fruitless, the people commonly attack him by
night, rob him of all he possesses, and drive him away.
But often they kill him.5 Ancient Chinese writers inform
us that in Corea the blame was laid on the king whenever
too much or too little rain fell and the crops did not ripen.
Some said that he must be deposed, others that he must be
slain.6 There is a tradition that once when the land of the
Edonians in Thrace bore no fruit, the god Dionysus in-
timated to the people that its fertility could be restored by
1 J. Leighton Wilson, Western ins Herz -von Afrika, p. 779 sq.
Africa (London, 1856), p. 129 sq. ; 6 A. Pfizmayer, " Nachrichten von
Miss Mary H. Kingsley, in Joam. den alten Bewohnem des heutigen
Anthrop. Institute, xxix. (1900), p. 62. Corea," Sitzungsberichte der philos.
2 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxviii. 5. histor. Classe der kais. Akademie der
14. Wissenschaften (Vienna), lvii. (1868), p.
3 P. Kollmann, The Victoria Nyanza 483 sq. It would seem that the Chinese
(London, 1899), p. 168. reported similarly of the Roman em-
4 D'Unienville, Statistique de Vile perors. See Hirth, China and the
Maurice (Paris, 1838), iii. 285 sq. Roman Orient, pp. 41, 44, 52, 58, 70,
5 Fr. Stuhlmann, Mil Emin Pascha 78.
i FOR WEATHER AND CROPS 159
putting their king Lycurgus to death. So they took him to
Mount Pangaeum and there caused him to be torn in pieces
by horses.1 In the time of the Swedish king Domalde a
mighty famine broke out, which lasted several years, and
could be stayed by the blood neither of beasts nor of
men. Therefore, in a great popular assembly held at
Upsala, the chiefs decided that King Domalde himself was
the cause of the scarcity and must be sacrificed for good
seasons. So they slew him and smeared with his blood the
altars of the gods. Again, we are told that the Swedes
always attributed good or bad crops to their kings as the
cause. Now, in the reign of King Olaf, there came dear
times and famine, and the people thought that the fault was
the king's, because he was sparing in his sacrifices. So,
mustering an army, they marched against him, surrounded
his dwelling, and burned him in it, " giving him to Odin as
a sacrifice for good crops."2 In 18 14, a pestilence having
broken out among the reindeer of the Chukch, the shamans
declared that the beloved chief Koch must be sacrificed to
the angry gods ; so the chief's own son stabbed him with
a dagger.3 On the coral island of Niue, or Savage Island,
in the South Pacific, there formerly reigned a line of kings.
But as the kings were also high priests, and were supposed
to make the food grow, the people became angry with them
in times of scarcity and killed them ; till at last, as one after
another was killed, no one would be king, and the monarchy
came to an end.4 As in these cases the divine kings, so in
ancient Egypt the divine beasts, were responsible for the
course of nature. When pestilence and other calamities had
fallen on the land, in consequence of a long and severe
drought, the priests took the sacred animals secretly by
night, and threatened them, but if the evil did not abate
they slew the beasts.5
From this survey of the religious position occupied by
the king in rude societies we may infer that the claim to
1 Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, iii. 5. I. 3 C. Russwurm, " Aberglaube in
2 Snorro Starleson, Chronicle of the Russland," in Zeitschrift fiir Deutsche
Kings of Norway (trans, by S. Laing), RIythologie und Sittenkitnde, iv. (1859),
saga i. chs. 18, 47. Cp. Liebrecht, p. 162; Liebrecht, op. cit. p. 15.
Zur Volskunde, p. 7 ; J. Scheffer, Up- i Turner, Samoa, p. 304 sq.
salia (Upsala, 1666), p. 137. 5 Plutarch, his et Osiris, 73.
i6o
DIVINE KINGS
CHAP.
divine and supernatural powers put forward by the monarchs
of great historical empires like those of Egypt, Mexico, and
Peru, was not the simple outcome of inflated vanity or the
empty expression of a grovelling adulation ; it was merely
a survival and extension of the old savage apotheosis of
living kings. Thus, for example, as children of the Sun the
Incas of Peru were revered like gods ; they could do no
wrong, and no one dreamed of offending against the person,
honour, or property of the monarch or of any of the royal
race. Hence, too, the Incas did not, like most people, look
on sickness as an evil. They considered it a messenger sent
from their father the Sun to call his son to come and rest
with him in heaven. Therefore the usual words in which
an Inca announced his approaching end were these : " My
father calls me to come and rest with him." They would
not oppose their father's will by offering sacrifice for recovery,
but openly declared that he had called them to his rest.1
The Mexican kings at their accession took an oath that
they would make the sun to shine, the clouds to give rain,
the rivers to flow, and the earth to bring forth fruits in
abundance.2 By Chinese custom the emperor is deemed
responsible if the drought be at all severe, and many are the
self-condemnatory edicts on this subject published in the
pages of the venerable Peking Gazette. However, it is
rather as a high priest than as a god that the Chinese
emperor bears the blame ; for in extreme cases he seeks to
remedy the evil by personally offering prayers and sacrifices
to heaven.3 The Parthian monarchs of the Arsacid house
styled themselves brothers of the sun and moon and were
worshipped as deities. It was esteemed sacrilege to strike
even a private member of the Arsacid family in a brawl.4
1 Garcilasso de la Vega, First Part
of the Royal Commentaries of the Yncas,
bk. ii. chs. 8 and 15 (vol. i. pp. 131,
155, Markham's Trans.). Mr. E. J.
Payne denies that the Incas believed in
their descent from the sun, and stig-
matises as a ridiculous fable the notion
that they were worshipped as gods {His-
tory of the New World called America,
i. 506, 512). I content myself with
reproducing the statements of Garci-
lasso de la Vega, who had ample means
of ascertaining the truth, and whose
honesty, so far as I am aware, has not
been questioned.
2 Bancroft, Native Races of the
Pacific States, ii. 146.
3 Dennys, Folklore of China, p. 125.
An account of the Peking Gazette, the
official publication of the Chinese gov-
ernment, may be read in the Lettres
Cdif antes et curieuses, xxi. 95-182.
4 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 6,
§§ 5 and 6.
i IN ANCIENT EGYPT 161
The kings of Egypt were deified in their lifetime, sacrifices
were offered to them, and their worship was celebrated in
special temples and by special priests. Indeed the worship
of the kings sometimes cast that of the gods into the shade.
Thus in the reign of Merenra a high official declared that
he had built many holy places in order that the spirits of
the king, the ever-living Merenra, might be invoked " more
than all the gods." 1 The king of Egypt seems to have
shared with the sacred animals the blame of any failure
of the crops.2 He was addressed as " Lord of heaven, lord
of earth, sun, life of the whole world, lord of time, measurer
of the sun's course, Turn for men, lord of well-being, creator
of the harvest, maker and fashioner of mortals, bestower of
breath upon all men, giver of live to all the host of gods,
pillar of heaven, threshold of the earth, weigher of the equi-
poise of both worlds, lord of rich gifts, increaser of the corn,"
and so forth.3 Yet, as we should expect, the exalted powers
thus ascribed to the king differed in degree rather than in
kind from those which every Egyptian claimed for himself.
Professor Tiele observes that " as every good man at his
death became Osiris, as every one in danger or need could
by the use of magic sentences assume the form of a deity, it
is quite comprehensible how the king, not only after death, but
already during his life, was placed on a level with the deity." i
Thus it appears that the same union of sacred functions
with a royal title which meets us in the King of the Wood
at Nemi, the Sacrificial King at Rome, and the magistrate
1 C. P. Tiele, History of the their kings as very gods."
Egyptian Religion, p. 103 sq. On the 2 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxviiii. 5-
worship of the kings see also E. Meyer, ^ . Plutarchj Isis et 0siriSy ?3-
Geschichte des Altertums, i. § 52 > A.
Erman, Aegyptemindaegyptisches Leben 3 V- von Strauss und Carnen, op. cit.
im Altertum, p. 91 sqq. ; V. von Strauss P' 47°-
und Carnen, Die altagyptischen Cotter 4 C. P. Tiele, Histoiy of the Egyptian
und Gottersagen, [p. 467* sqq. ; A. Religion, p. 105. The Babylonian and
Wiedemann, Die Religion der alten Assyrian kings seem also to have been
Aegypter, p. 92 sq. ; id., " Menschen- regarded as gods; at least the oldest
vergotterung im alten Aegypten," Am names of the kings on the monuments
Urquelle, N.F. i. (1897), p. 289 sqq. ; are preceded by a star, the mark for
G. Maspero, Histoire ancienne des "god." But there is no trace in
peuples de I Orient classique : les Babylon and Assyria of temples and
Origines, pp. 25S-267. Diodorus priests for the worship of the kings.
Siculus observed (i. 90) that " the See C. P. Tiele, Babylonisch-Assyrische
Egyptians seem to worship and honour Geschichte, p. 492 sq.
VOL. I M
1 62 KINGS OF NATURE chap.
called the king at Athens, occurs frequently outside the
limits of classical antiquity and is a common feature of
societies at all stages from barbarism to civilisation. Further,
it appears that the royal priest is often a king in fact as well
as in name, swaying the sceptre as well as the crosier. All
this confirms the tradition of the origin of the titular and
priestly kings in the republics of ancient Greece and Italy.
At least by showing that the combination of spiritual and
temporal power, of which Graeco-Italian tradition preserved
the memory, has actually existed in many places, we have
obviated any suspicion of improbability that might have
attached to the tradition. Therefore we may now fairly
ask, May not the King of the Wood have had an origin like
that which a probable tradition assigns to the Sacrificial
King of Rome and the titular King of Athens ? In other
words, may not his predecessors in office have been a line of
kings whom a republican revolution stripped of their political
power, leaving them only their religious functions and the
shadow of a crown ? There are at least two reasons for
answering this question in the negative. One reason is
drawn from the abode of the priest of Nemi ; the other from
his title, the King of the Wood. If his predecessors had
been kings in the ordinary sense, he would surely have been
found residing, like the fallen kings of Rome and Athens, in
the city of which the sceptre had passed from him. This
city must have been Aricia, for there was none nearer. But
Aricia, as we have seen, was three miles off from his forest
sanctuary by the lake shore. If he reigned, it was not in
the city, but in the greenwood. Again his title, King of the
Wood, hardly allows us to suppose that he had ever been a
king in the common sense of the word. More likely he
was a king of nature, and of a special side of nature, namely,
the woods from which he took his title. If we could find
instances of what we may call departmental kings of nature,
that is of persons supposed to rule over particular elements
or aspects of nature, they would probably present a closer
analogy to the King of the Wood than the divine kings we
have been hitherto considering, whose control of nature is
general rather than special. Instances of such departmental
kings are not wanting.
I KINGS OF RAIN 163
On a hill at Bomma (the mouth of the Congo) dwells
Namvulu Vumu, King of the Rain and Storm.1 Of some
of the tribes on the Upper Nile we are told that they have
no kings in the common sense ; the only persons whom they
acknowledge as such are the Kings of the Rain, Mata Kodou,
who are credited with the power of giving rain at the proper
time, that is in the rainy season. Before the rains begin
to fall at the end of March the country is a parched and
arid desert ; and the cattle, which form the people's chief
wealth, perish for lack of grass. So, when the end of March
draws on, each householder betakes himself to the King of
the Rain and offers him a cow that he may make the blessed
waters of heaven to drip on the brown and withered pastures.
If no shower falls, the people assemble and demand that the
king shall give them rain ; and if the sky still continues
cloudless, they rip up his belly, in which he is believed to
keep the storms. Amongst the Bari tribe one of these Rain
Kings made rain by sprinkling water on the ground out of
a handbell."
Among tribes on the outskirts of Abyssinia a similar
office exists and has been thus described by an observer.
" The priesthood of the Alfai, as he is called by the Barea
and Kunama, is a remarkable one ; he is believed to be able
to make rain. This office formerly existed among the
Algeds and appears to be still common to the Nuba negroes.
The Alfai of the Bareas, who is also consulted by the
northern Kunama, lives near Tembadere on a mountain
alone with his family. The people bring him tribute in the
form of clothes and fruits, and cultivate for him a large field
of his own. He is a kind of king, and his office passes by
inheritance to his brother or sister's son. He is supposed to
conjure down rain and to drive away the locusts. But if he
disappoints the people's expectation and a great drought
arises in the land, the Alfai is stoned to death, and his
nearest relations are obliged to cast the first stone at him.
When we passed through the country, the office of Alfai was
still held by an old man ; but I heard that rain-making had
1 Bastian, Die Deutsche Expedition la region superieure du Nil," Bulletin
an der Loango-Kiiste, ii. 230. de la Socicte de Gdographie, Paris, 1852,
2 " Excursion de M.Brun-Rollet dans pt. ii. p. 421 sag.
1 64 KINGS OF FIRE AND WATER chap.
proved too dangerous for him and that he had renounced
his office." l
In the backwoods of Cambodia live two mysterious
sovereigns known as the King of the Fire and the King of
the Water. Their fame is spread all over the south of the
great Indo-Chinese peninsula; but only a faint echo of it
has reached the West. Down to a few years ago no Euro-
pean, so far as is known, had ever seen either of them ;
and their very existence might have passed for a fable, were
it not that till lately communications were regularly main-
tained between them and the King of Cambodia, who year
by year exchanged presents with them. The Cambodian
gifts were passed from tribe to tribe till they reached their
destination ; for no Cambodian would essay the long and
perilous journey. The tribe amongst whom the Kings of
Fire and Water reside is the Chreais or Jaray, a race with
European features but a sallow complexion, inhabiting the
forest-clad mountains and high tablelands which separate
Cambodia from Annam. Their royal functions are of a
purely mystic or spiritual order ; they have no political
authority ; they are simple peasants, living by the sweat of
their brow and the offerings of the faithful. According to
one account they live in absolute solitude, never meeting
each other and never seeing a human face. They inhabit
successively seven towers perched upon seven mountains,
and every year they pass from one tower to another.
People come furtively and cast within their reach what is
needful for their subsistence. The kingship lasts seven
years, the time necessary to inhabit all the towers succes-
sively ; but many die before their time is out. The offices
are hereditary in one or (according to others) two royal
families, who enjoy high consideration, have revenues
assigned to them, and are exempt from the necessity of
tilling the ground. But naturally the dignity is not coveted,
and when a vacancy occurs, all eligible men (they must be
strong and have children) flee and hide themselves. Another
account, admitting the reluctance of the hereditary candidates
to accept the crown, does not countenance the report of
their hermit -like seclusion in the seven towers. For it
1 W. Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien (Schaffhausen, 1864), p. 474.
i KINGS OF FIRE AND WATER 165
represents the people as prostrating themselves before the
mystic kings whenever they appear in public, it being
thought that a terrible hurricane would burst over the
country if this mark of homage were omitted. Probably,
however, these are mere fables such as commonly shed a
glamour of romance over the distant and unknown. A
French officer, who had an interview with the redoubtable
Fire King in February 189 1, found him stretched on a
bamboo couch, diligently smoking a long copper pipe, and
surrounded by people who paid him no great deference. In
spite of his mystic vocation the sorcerer had no charm or
talisman about him, and was in no way distinguishable from
his fellows except by his tall stature.
We are told that the Fire King, the more important of
the two, whose supernatural powers have never been
questioned, officiates at marriages, festivals, and sacrifices in
honour of the Yan. On these occasions a special place is
set apart for him ; and the path by which he approaches is
spread with white cotton cloths. A reason for confining the
royal dignity to the same family is that this family is in
possession of certain famous talismans which would lose
their virtue or disappear if they passed out of the family.
These talismans are three : the fruit of a creeper called Cut,
gathered ages ago at the time of the last deluge, but still
fresh and green ; a rattan, also very old but bearing flowers
that never fade ; and lastly, a sword containing a Yan or
spirit, who guards it constantly and works miracles with it.
By means of the two former the Water King can raise a
flood that would drown the whole earth. If the Fire King
draws the magic sword a few inches from its sheath, the sun
is hidden and men and beasts fall into a profound sleep ;
were he to draw it quite out of the scabbard, the world
would come to an end. To this wondrous brand sacrifices
of buffaloes, pigs, fowls, and ducks are offered for rain. It
is kept swathed in cotton and silk ; and amongst the annual
presents sent by the King of Cambodia were rich stuffs to
wrap the sacred sword.
In return the Kings of Fire and Water sent him a huge
wax candle and two calabashes, one full of rice and the
other of sesame. The candle bore the impress of the Fire
166 KINGS OF FIRE AND WATER chap.
King's middle finger. Probably the candle was thought to
contain the seed of fire, which the Cambodian monarch
thus received once a year fresh from the Fire King himself.
The holy candle was kept for sacred uses. On reaching the
capital of Cambodia it was entrusted to the Brahmans, who
laid it up beside the regalia, and with the wax made tapers
which were burned on the altars on solemn days. As the
candle was the special gift of the Fire King, we may con-
jecture that the rice and sesame were the special gift of
the Water King. The latter was doubtless king of rain as
well as of water, and the fruits of the earth were boons con-
ferred by him on men. In times of calamity, as during
plague, floods, and war, a little of this sacred rice and sesame
was scattered on the ground " to appease the wrath of the
maleficent spirits." Contrary to the common usage of the
country, which is to bury the dead, the bodies of both these
mystic monarchs are burnt, but their nails and some of their
teeth and bones are religiously preserved as amulets. It is
while the corpse is being consumed on the pyre that the
kinsmen of the deceased magician flee to the forest and hide
themselves for fear of being elevated to the invidious dignity
which he has just vacated. The people go and search for
them, and the first whose lurking place they discover is
made King of Fire or Water.1
These, then, are examples of what I have called depart-
mental kings of nature. But it is a far cry to Italy from the
forests of Cambodia and the sources of the Nile. And
though Kings of Rain, Water, and Fire have been found, we
have still to discover a King of the Wood to match the
Arician priest who bore that title. Perhaps we shall find
him nearer home.
8 4. Tree-worsJiip
In the religious history of the Aryan race in Europe the
worship of trees has played an important part. Nothing
1 J. Moura, Le Royaume du Cam- naissances, No. 16, p. 172 sq. ; id.,
bodge, i. 432-436; Aymonier, "Notes ATotes sur le Laos, p. 60 ; Le Capitaine
sur les coutumes et croyances supersti- Cupet, " Chez les populations sauvages
tieuses des Cambodgiens," in Cochin- du Sud de l'Annam," Tour du Monde,
chine francaise : Excursions et Recon- No. 16S2, April 1, 1893, pp. 193-204.
i TREE-WORSHIP 167
could be more natural. For at the dawn of history Europe
was covered with immense primeval forests, in which the
scattered clearings must have appeared like islets in an
ocean of green. Down to the first century before our era
the Hercynian forest stretched eastward from the Rhine for
a distance at once vast and unknown ; Germans whom
Caesar questioned had travelled for two months through it
without reaching the end.1 Four centuries later it was
visited by the Emperor Julian, and the solitude, the gloom,
the silence of the forest appear to have made a deep impres-
sion on his sensitive nature. He declared that he knew
nothing like it in the Roman empire.2 In our own country
the wealds of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex are remnants of the
great forest of Anderida, which once clothed the whole of
the south-eastern portion of the island. Westward it seems
to have stretched till it joined another forest that extended
from Hampshire to Devon. In the reign of Henry II. the
citizens of London still hunted the wild bull and the boar in
the woods of Hampstead. Even under the later Plantagenets
the royal forests were sixty-eight in number. In the forest
of Arden it was said that down to modern times a squirrel
might leap from tree to tree for nearly the whole length of
Warwickshire.3 The excavation of ancient pile-villages
in the valley of the Po has shown that long before the rise
and probably the foundation of Rome the north of Italy was
covered with dense woods of elms, chestnuts, and especially
of oaks.4 Archaeology is here confirmed by history ; for
classical writers contain many references to Italian forests
which have now disappeared.5 In Greece the woods of the
present day are a mere fraction of those which clothed great
tracts in antiquity, and which at a more remote epoch may
have spanned the Greek peninsula from sea to sea.13
From an examination of the Teutonic words for " temple "
Grimm has made it probable that amongst the Germans the
1 Caesar, Bell. Gall. vi. 25. 4 W. Helbig, Die Ilaliker in der
- Julian, Fragm. 4, ed. Hertlein, Poebene, p. 25 sq.
p. 608 sq. On the vast woods of 5 H. Nissen, Italische Landeskundi
Germany, their coolness and shade, (Berlin, 18S3), p. 431 sqq.
see also Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvi. 5. ° Neumann und Partsch, Physika-
3 Elton, Origins of English History, lische Geographie von Gricchenland,
pp. 3, 106 jy., 224. p. 357 sqq.
1 68
TREE-WORSHIP
CHAP.
oldest sanctuaries were natural woods.1 However this may!
be, tree-worship is well attested for all the great European
families of the Aryan stock. Amongst the Celts the oak-
worship of the Druids is familiar to every one.2 Sacred
groves were common among the ancient Germans, and tree-
worship is hardly extinct amongst their descendants at the
present day.3 How serious that worship was in former1
times may be gathered from the ferocious penalty appointed
by the old German laws for such as dared to peel the bark
of a standing tree. The culprit's navel was to be cut out
and nailed to the part of the tree which he had peeled, and
he was to be driven round and round the tree till all his guts
were wound about its trunk.4 At Upsala, the old religious
capital of Sweden, there was a sacred grove in which every
tree was regarded as divine.5 Among the Slavs the oak
seems to have been the sacred tree of the great god Perun,
as it was of Zeus among the Greeks.0 It is said that at
Novgorod there used to stand an image of Perun, in honour
of which a fire of oak-wood burned day and night ; if ever
the fire died out for want of fuel, the attendants paid for
their negligence with their lives.7 The Lithuanians were
not converted to Christianity till towards the close of the
fourteenth century, and amongst them at the date of their
conversion the worship of trees was prominent.8 Amongst
the ancient Prussians (a Lithuanian people) the central feature
of religion was the reverence for the sacred oaks, of which
the chief stood at Romove, tended by a hierarchy of priests
who kept up a perpetual fire of oak-wood in the holy grove.9
1 Grimm, Deutsche Mythologies i.
53 m-
2 Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvi. 249 sqq. ;
Maximus Tyrius, Dissert, viii. 8.
3 Grimm, D.M. i. 56 sqq. ; Ba-
varia, landes- und Volkeskitnde des
Konigreichs Bayern, iii. 929 sq.
4 Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthit-
mer, p. 519 sq. ; W. Mannhardt,
Baitmkitltus, p. 26 sqq.
5 Adam of Bremen, Descriptio Insu-
lar um Aquilom's, 27 (Migne's Patro-
logia, vol. cxlvi. col. 644).
c L. Leger, "Etudes de mythologie
Slave," Revue de I'histoire des religions,
xxxi. (1S95), P- IDI Scl-
7 L. Leger, op. cit. p. 91, citing
Guagnini's Sarmatiae eu?-opeae de-
scriptio.
8 Mathias Michov, " De Sarmatia
Asiana atque Europea," in Novus Orbis
regionum ac insularum vetcribus in-
cognitarwn (Paris, 1532), pp. 455 sq.
456 [wrongly numbered 445, 446] ;
Martin Cromer, De origine et rebus
gestis Polonorum (Basel, 1568), p. 241 ;
Fabricius, Livonicae historiae compend-
iosa series {Scriptores rerum Livonic-
arum, ii. (Riga and Leipsic, 1848), p.
441).
9 " Prisca antiquorum Prutenorum
religio," in Respnblica sive Status Regni
i TREE-WORSHIP 169
If the sacred fire chanced to go out, it was rekindled by
the friction of oak-wood.1 Traces of this reverence for
the tree long lingered among the people. Thus in the
seventeenth century, at a village near Ragnit, there was an
oak which the villagers regarded as sacred, firmly believing
that any person who harmed it would be punished by some
misfortune, especially by some bodily ailment or injury.2
It is said that about the middle of the nineteenth century
offerings of food were still laid down under ancient oaks for
the spirits,3 and that the viands for funeral banquets were
cooked on a fire of oak-wood, or at least under an oak-tree.4
Proofs of the prevalence of tree-worship in ancient Greece
and Italy are abundant.5 Nowhere, perhaps, in the ancient
world was this antique form of religion better preserved than in
the heart of the great metropolis itself. In the Forum, the
busy centre of Roman life, the sacred fig-tree of Romulus
was worshipped down to the days of the empire, and the
withering of its trunk was enough to spread consternation
through the city.6 Again, on the slope of the Palatine Hill
grew a cornel-tree which was esteemed one of the most
sacred objects in Rome. Whenever the tree appeared to a
passer-by to be drooping, he set up a hue and cry which
was echoed by the people in the street, and soon a crowd
might be seen running from all sides with buckets of
water, as if (says Plutarch) they were hastening to put out
a fire.7
But it is necessary to examine in some detail the
notions on which the worship of trees and plants is based.
"|To the savage the world in general is animate, and trees
and plants are no exception to the rule. He thinks that
they have souls like his own, and he treats them accordingly.
Poloniae,Lituaniae,Prussiae,Livoniae, 3 J. G. Kohl, Die deiitsch-russischen
etc. (Elzevir, 1627), p. 321 sq. ; Dus- Ostseeprovinzen, ii. 31, cp. 33.
burg, Chronicon Prussiae, ed. Hart- 4 Schleicher, "Lituanica," Sitzungs-
knoch, p. 79 ; Hartknoch, Alt- und berichu der phuos% histor. Classe der
Nates Prezissen, p. 116 sqq. At Heih- kaiser. Akadcmieder Wissenschaften
genbeil there was another very sacred (Vienna), xi. (1854), p. 100.
oak. See Tettau und Temme, Die ' , _ _.. . . „ „ ...
TZ r , r, .. T \«z j 5 See Botticher, Der Baumkultus
Volkssagen Ostpreussens, Litthauens una
Westpreussens, p. 35 sqq. der H*Uenen-
1 Praetorius, Deliciae Prussicae (Ber- ° Plin>r> Nat- Hlst- xv- 77 5 Taci-
lin, 1871), p. 19 sq. tus, Ann. xiii. 58.
2 Praetorius, op. n't. p. 16. 7 Plutarch, Romulus, 20.
170 TREE-SPIRITS chap.
Thus, the Hidatsa Indians of North America believe that
every natural object has its spirit or, to speak more properly,
its shade. To these shades some consideration or respect
is due, but not equally to all. For example, the shade of thel
cottonwood, the greatest tree in the valley of the Upper Mis-/
souri, is supposed to possess an intelligence which, if properly^
approached, may help the Indians in certain undertakings {
but the shades of shrubs and grasses are of little account:
When the Missouri, swollen by a freshet in spring, carries
away part of its banks and sweeps some tall tree into its
current, it is said that the spirit of the tree cries while the
roots still cling to the land and until the tree falls into the
stream. Formerly the Indians considered it wrong to fell
one of these giants, and when large logs were needed they
made use only of trees which had fallen of themselves. Till
lately some of the more credulous old men declared that
many of the misfortunes of their people were caused by this
modern disregard for the rights of the living cottonwood.1
The Wanika of Eastern Africa fancy that every tree, and
especially every cocoa-nut tree, has its spirit ; " the destruc-
tion of a cocoa-nut tree is regarded as equivalent to matri-
cide, because that tree gives them life and nourishment, as
a mother does her child."2 In the Yasawu islands of Fiji
a man will never eat a cocoa-nut without first asking its
leave, "May I eat you, my chief?"3 The Dyaks ascribe
souls to trees, and do not dare to cut down an old tree. In
some places, when an old tree has been blown down, they
set it up, smear it with blood, and deck it with flags " to
appease the soul of the tree."4 Siamese monks, believing
that there are souls everywhere, and that to destroy anything
whatever is forcibly to dispossess a soul, will not break a
branch of a tree, " as they will not break the arm of an
innocent person." 5 These monks, of course, are Buddhists.l
But Buddhist animism is not a philosophical theory. It isl
1 Washington Matthews, Ethno- to the author dated November 3rd,
graphy and Philology of the Hidatsa 189S.
Indians (Washington, 1877), p. 48 sq. 4 Hupe, "Over de godsdienst, zeden
2 T- L- Krapf, Travels, Researches, enz. der Dajakkers," Tijdschrift voor
and Missionary Labours during an Neerlands Indie, 1S46, dl. iii. p.
Eighteen Years'1 Residence in Eastern 15S.
Africa (London, i860), p. 198. 5 Loubere, Dit Royaume de Siam
3 Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a letter (Amsterdam, 1691), i. 382.
I TREE-SPIRITS 171
t imply a common savage dogma incorporated in the system
f an historical religion. To suppose with Benfey and
others that the theories of animism and transmigration
current among rude peoples of Asia are derived from
Buddhism is to reverse the facts. Buddhism in this respect
borrowed from savagery, not savagery from Buddhism.1
Sometimes it is only particular sorts of trees that are
supposed to be tenanted by spirits. At Grbalj in Dalmatia
it is said that among great beeches, oaks, and other trees
there are some that are endowed with shades or souls, and
whoever fells one of them must die on the spot, or at least
live an invalid for the rest of his days. If a woodman fears
that a tree which he has felled is one of this sort, he must
cut off the head of a live hen on the stump of the tree with
the very same axe with which he cut down the tree. This
will protect him from all harm, even if the tree be one of
the animated kind.2 The silk-cotton trees, which rear their
enormous trunks to a stupendous height, far out-topping all
the other trees of the forest, are regarded with reverence
throughout West Africa, from the Senegal to the Niger, and
are believed to be the abode of a god or spirit. Among the
Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast the indwelling god
of this giant of the forest goes by the name of Huntin.
Trees in which he specially dwells — for it is not every silk-
cotton tree that he thus honours — are surrounded by a
girdle of palm-leaves ; and sacrifices of fowls, and occasion-
ally of human beings, are fastened to the trunk or laid
against the foot of the tree. A tree distinguished by a
girdle of palm-leaves may not be cut down or injured in
any way; and even silk- cotton trees which are not supposed
to be animated by Huntin may not be felled unless the
woodman first offers a sacrifice of fowls and palm-oil to
purge himself of the proposed sacrilege. To omit the
sacrifice is an offence which may be punished with death.3
Everywhere in Egypt on the borders of the cultivated land,
1 The Buddhist conception of trees religioser Branch der Siidslaven, p. 33.
as animated often comes out in the 3 A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking
Jatakas. For examples see H. Olden- Peoples of the Slave Coast (London,
berg, Die Religion ties Veda, p. 259 1890), p. 49 sqq. Compare id., The
sqq. Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast,
2 F. S. Krauss, Volksglaube und p. 34 sqq.
172 SACRIFICES TO TREES chap.
and even at some distance from the valley of the Nile, you
meet with fine sycamores standing solitary and thriving as
by a miracle in the sandy soil ; their living green contrasts
strongly with the tawny hue of the surrounding landscape,
and their thick impenetrable foliage bids defiance even in
summer to the noonday sun. The secret of their verdure is
that their roots strike down into rills of water that trickle
by unseen sluices from the great river. Of old the Egyptians
of every rank esteemed these trees divine, and paid them
regular homage. They gave them figs, raisins, cucumbers,
vegetables, and water in earthenware pitchers, which chari-
table folk filled afresh every day. Passers-by slaked their
thirst at these pitchers in the sultry hours, and paid for the
welcome draught by a short prayer. The spirit that ani-
mated these beautiful trees generally lurked unseen, but
sometimes he would show his head or even his whole body
outside the trunk, but only to retire into it again.1 In some
of the Louisiade Islands there are certain large trees under
which the natives hold their feasts. These trees seem to
be regarded as endowed with souls ; for a portion of the
feast is set aside for them, and the bones of pigs and of
human beings are everywhere deeply imbedded in their
branches.2 People in Congo place calabashes of palm-wine
at the foot of certain trees for the trees to drink when they
are thirsty.3 Among the Kangra mountains of the Punjaub
a girl used to be annually sacrificed to an old cedar-tree,
the families of the village taking it in turn to supply the
victim. The tree was cut down about twenty years ago.4
If trees are animate, they are necessarily sensitive. When
an oak is being felled " it gives a kind of shriekes or groanes,
that may be heard a mile off, as if it were the genius of the
oake lamenting. E. Wyld, Esq., hath heard it severall
times." The Ojebways " very seldom cut down green or
living trees, from the idea that it puts them to pain, and
1 G. Maspero, Histoire ancienne des Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, xvi.
peuples de I 'Orient classique : les Ori- 236.
gm"u. H2IRomilly, From my Veran- * ^tson Outlines of Panjab Eth-
dak in New Guinea (London, 1889), noSraphy (Calcutta, 1883), p. 120.
p. 86. 5 J. Aubrey, Remains of Gentilisme,
3 Merolla, "Voyage to Congo," in p. 247.
i TREES SENSITIVE AND BLEEDING 173
some of their medicine -men profess to have heard the
wailing of the trees under the axe." l Old peasants in some
parts of Austria still believe that forest-trees are animate,
and will not allow an incision to be made in the bark
without special cause ; they have heard from their fathers
that the tree feels the cut not less than a wounded man his
hurt. In felling a tree they beg its pardon.2 So in Jarkino
the woodman craves pardon of the tree he fells.3 Before
the Ilocanes of Luzon cut down trees in the virgin forest or
on the mountains, they recite some verses to the following
effect : " Be not uneasy, my friend, though we fell what we
have been ordered to fell." This they do in order not to
draw down on themselves the hatred of the spirits who live
in the trees, and who are apt to avenge themselves by
visiting with grievous sickness such as injure them wantonly.4
Ancient Indian books prescribe that in preparing to fell a
tree the woodman should lay a stalk of grass on the spot
where the blow is to fall, with the words, " O grass, protect
him," and that he should say to the axe, " Axe, harm him
not." When the tree had fallen, he poured butter on the
stump, saying, " Lord of the forest, grow with a hundred
branches ; may we grow with a thousand branches." Then
he anointed the severed stem and wound a rope of grass
round it.5 Again, when a tree or plant is cut it is some-
times thought to bleed. Some Indians dare not cut a
certain plant, because there comes out a red juice which
they take for the blood of the plant.0 In Samoa there was
a grove of trees which no one dared hew down. Once some
strangers tried to do so, but blood flowed from the tree, and
the sacrilegious strangers fell ill and died.' Down to 1859
there stood a sacred larch-tree at Nauders in the Tyrol
which was thought to bleed whenever it was cut ; moreover
it was believed that the steel pierced the woodman's body
1 Peter Jones, History of the Ojeb- Ilocanen (Luzon)," Mittheilungen der
■way Indians, p. 104. k. k. Geograph. Gesellschaft in Wien,
2 A. Peter, Volksthiimliches ans xxxi. (1888), p. 556.
oesterreichisch Schlesien, ii. 30. 6 R 01denberg) Die Reiigion des
3 Bastian, Indonesien, 1. 154 ; com- yec[a p# 256 sq.
pare zV/., Die Volker des ostlichen J si en, ' ' " '
ii. 457 *., i«- 251 sq., iv. 42 sq. , ' Louj>ere> f u *V°%" de Slam
* J. de los Reyes y Florentine, (Amsterdam, l69i),-i. 383.
" Die religibsen Anschauungen der 7 G. Turner, Samoa, p. 63.
174 THREATENING THE TREE-SPIRIT chap.
to the same depth that it pierced the tree, and that the
wound on his body would not heal until the bark closed
over the scar on the trunk. So sacred was the tree that no
one would gather fuel or cut timber near it ; and to curse,
scold, or quarrel in its neighbourhood was regarded as a
crying sin which would be supernaturally punished on the
spot. Angry disputants were often hushed with the warning
whisper, " Don't, the sacred tree is here." l
But the spirits of vegetation are not always treated with
deference and respect. If fair words and kind treatment do
not move them, stronger measures are sometimes resorted
to. The durian-tree of the East Indies, whose smooth stem
often shoots up to a height of eighty or ninety feet without
sending out a branch, bears a fruit of the most delicious
flavour and the most disgusting stench. The Malays culti-
vate the tree for the sake of its fruit, and have been known
to resort to a peculiar ceremony for the purpose of stimu-
lating its fertility. Near Jugra in Selangor there is a small
grove of durian- trees, and on a specially chosen day the
villagers used to assemble in it. Thereupon one of the
local sorcerers would take a hatchet and deliver several
shrewd blows on the trunk of the most barren of the
trees, saying, " Will you now bear fruit or not ? If you do
not, I shall fell you." To this the tree replied through the
mouth of another man who had climbed a magnostin-tree
hard by (the durian-tree being unclimbable), " Yes, I will
now bear fruit ; I beg you not to fell me." 2 Odd as this
mode of horticulture may seem to us, it has its exact parallel
in Europe. On Christmas Eve many a South Slavonian and
Bulgarian peasant swings an axe threateningly against a
barren fruit-tree, while another man standing by intercedes for
the menaced tree, saying, " Do not cut it down ; it will soon
bear fruit." Thrice the axe is swung, and thrice the impend-
ing blow is arrested at the entreaty of the intercessor. After
that the frightened tree will certainly bear fruit next year.3
1 Zingerle, " Der heilige Baum bei fruit, see A. R. Wallace, The Malay
Nauders," Zeitschrift fiir deutsche Archipelago, p. 74 sqq.
Mythologie ttnd Sitterihutide, iv. (1859), 3 F. S. Krauss, Volksglaube tind
P- 33 Slllb religi'dser Branch der Siidslaven, p. 34;
2 W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, p. A. Strausz, Die Bulgaren (Leipsic,
198 sq. As to the durian-tree and its 1898), p. 352.
i DECEIVING THE TREE-SPIRIT 175
In Armenia the same pantomime is sometimes performed
by two men for the same purpose on Good Friday.1
In Lesbos, when an orange-tree or a lemon-tree does not
bear fruit, the owner will sometimes set a looking-glass
before the tree ; then standing with an axe in his hand over
against the tree and gazing at its reflection in the glass
he will feign to fall into a passion and will say aloud,
" Bear fruit, or I'll cut you down." 2 When cabbages
merely curl their leaves instead of forming heads as
they ought to do, an Esthonian peasant will go out into
the garden before sunrise, clad only in his shirt, and
armed with a scythe, which he sweeps over the refractory
vegetables as if he meant to cut them down. This intimi-
dates the cabbages and brings them to a sense of their duty.3
If European peasants thus know how to work on the fears
of cabbages and fruit-trees, the subtle Malay has learned
how to overreach the simple souls of the plants and trees
that grow in his native land. Thus, when a bunch of fruit
hangs from an aren palm-tree, and in reaching after it you
tread on some of the fallen fruit, the Galelareese say that
you ought to grunt like a wild boar in order that your feet
may not itch. The chain of reasoning seems weak to a
European mind, but the natives find no flaw in it. They
have observed that wild boars are fond of the fruit, and run
freely about among it as it Hies on the ground. From this
they infer that the animal's feet are proof against the itch
which men suffer through treading on the fruit ; and hence
they conclude that if, by grunting in a natural and life-like
manner, you can impress the fruit with the belief that you
are a pig, it will treat your feet as tenderly as the feet of
his friends the real pigs.4 Again, pregnant women in Java
sometimes take a fancy to eat the wild species of a
particular plant (Colocasia antiquoruvi), which, on account
of its exceedingly pungent taste, is not commonly used as
1 M. Tcheraz, " Notes sur la Myth- abergliinbische Gebriiuche, IVeisen tend
ologie Armenienne," Transactions of Gewohnheiten, p. 134.
the Ninth International Congress of * M. J. van Baarda, " Fabelen,
Orientalists (London, 1893), ii. 827. Verhalen, en Overleveringen der Gale-
2 Georgeakis et Pineau, Folk-lore de lareezen," Bijdragen tot de Taal- land-
Lesbos (Paris, 1894), p. 354. en Volketiknnde van Nederlandsch
3 Boecler-Kreutzwald, Der Ehsten Indie, xlv. (1895), p. 511.
176 DECEIVING THE TREE-SPIRIT chap.
food by human beings, though it is relished by pigs. IjV
such a case it becomes the husband's duty to go and look
for the plant, but before he gathers it he takes care to grunt
loudly, in order that the plant may take him for a pig, and
so mitigate the pungency of its flavour.1 Again, in the
Madiun district of Java there grows a plant of which the
fruit is believed to be injurious for men, but not for apes.
The urchins who herd buffaloes, and to whom nothing edible
comes amiss, eat this fruit also ; but before plucking it they
take the precaution of mimicking the voices of apes, in
order to persuade the plant that its fruit is destined for the
maw of these creatures.2 Once more, the Javanese scrape
the rind of a certain plant (Sarcolobus narcoticus) into a
powder, with which they poison such dangerous beasts as
tigers and wild boars. But the rind is believed not to be a
poison for men. Hence the person who gathers the plant
has to observe certain precautions in order that its baneful
quality may not be lost in passing through his hands. He
approaches it naked and creeping on all fours to make the
plant think that he is a ravenous beast and not a man, and
to strengthen the illusion he bites the stalk. After that the'
deadly property of the rind is assured. But even when the.
plant has been gathered and the powder made from it in
strict accordance with certain superstitious rules, care is still;
needed in handling the powder, which is regarded as alive
and intelligent. It may not be brought near a corpse, nor
may a corpse be carried past the house in which the
powder is kept. For if either of these things were to
happen, the powder, seeing the corpse, would hastily con-
clude that it had already done its work, and so all its
noxious quality would be gone.3
The conception of trees and plants as animated beings
naturally results in treating them as male and female, who
can be married to each other in a real, and not merely a
figurative or poetical sense of the word. Thus, in India,
shrubs and trees are formally wedded to each other or to
1 A. G. Vorderman, " Planten-ani- Internationales Archiv fiir Ethno-
misme op Java," Tysmannia, No. 2, graphie, i.\. (1S96), p. 176.
1896, p. 59 J;/. ; Internationales Archiv
fiir Ethnographic, ix. (1896), p. 175. 3 A. G. Vorderman, op. cit. pp.
2 A. G. Vorderman, op. cit. p. 60; 61-63.
i TREES MARRIED 177
idols.1 In the North-West Provinces of India a marriage
ceremony is performed in honour of a newly planted orchard ;
a man holding the Salagram represents the bridegroom, and
another holding the sacred Tulsi {Ocymum sanctum) repre-
sents the bride.2 On Christmas Eve German peasants used
to tie fruit-trees together with straw ropes to make them bear
fruit, saying that the trees were thus married.3 In the
Moluccas, when the clove-trees are in blossom, they are
treated like pregnant women. No noise may be made near
them ; no light or fire may be carried past them at night ;
no one may approach them with his hat on, all must uncover
in their presence. These precautions are observed lest the
tree should be alarmed and bear no fruit, or should drop its
fruit too soon, like the untimely delivery of a woman who
has been frightened in her pregnancy.4 So in Amboyna,
when the rice is in bloom, the people say that it is pregnant
and fire no guns and make no other noises near the field, for
fear lest, if the rice were thus disturbed, it would miscarry,
and the crop would be all straw and no grain.5 The Javanese
also regard the bloom on the rice as a sign that the plant is
pregnant ; and they treat it accordingly, by mingling in the
water that irrigates the fields a certain astringent food pre-
pared from sour fruit, which is believed to be wholesome for
women with child.0 In some districts of Western Borneo
there must be no talk of corpses or demons in the fields,
else the spirit of the growing rice would be frightened and
flee away to Java.' In Orissa, also, growing rice is "con-
sidered as a pregnant woman, and the same ceremonies are
observed with regard to it as in the case of human females."8
1 Monier Williams, Religious Life Bastian, Indonesim, i. 156.
and Thought in India, p. 334 sq. 5 Van Hoevell, Ambon en meer be-
2 Sir Henry M. Elliot and J. Beames, paaldelijk.de Oeliasers, p. 62.
Memoirs on the History, etc., of the c G. A. Wilken, " Het animisme bij
Races of the Arorth- Western Provinces de volken van het Indischen archipel,"
of India (London, 1869), i. 233. De Indische Gids, June 18S4, p. 958 ;
3 Die gestriegelte Rockenphilosophie id., Handleiding voor de vergelijkende
(Chemnitz, 1759), p. 239 sq. ; U. Jahn, Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch Indie
Die deutsche Opfergebriinche bei Acker- (Leyden, 1893), p. 549 sq.
bau und Viehzttcht, p. 214 sqq. 7 E. L. M. Kiihr, " Schetsen uit
4 Van Schmid, " Aanteekeningen Borneo's Westerafdeeling, " Bijdragen
nopens de zeden, gewoonten en gebrui- tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
ken, etc., derbevolking van deeilanden Nederlandsch Indie, xlvii. (1S97), P-
Saparoea, etc." Tijdschrift voor Ne&r- 58 sq.
lands Indie, 1843, dl. ii. p. 605; 8 Indian Antiquary, \. (1S72). p. 170.
VOL. I N
i;8
SOULS OF DEAD IN TREES
chap.
In Poso, a district of Central Celebes, when the rice-ears are
beginning to form, women go through the field feeding the
young ears with soft-boiled rice to make them grow fast.
They carry the food in calabashes, and grasping the ears in
their hands bend them over into the vessels that they may
partake of the strengthening pap. The reason for boiling
the rice soft is that the ears are regarded as young children
who could not digest rice cooked in the usual way.1
Sometimes it is the souls of the dead which are believed
to animate the trees. The Dieri tribe of South Australia
regard as very sacred certain trees which are supposed to be
their fathers transformed ; hence they speak with reverence
of these trees, and are careful that they shall not be cut down
or burned. If the settlers require them to hew down the
trees, they earnestly protest against it, asserting that were they
to do so they would have no luck, and might be punished for
not protecting their ancestors.2 Some of the Philippine
Islanders believe that the souls of their ancestors are in
certain trees, which they therefore spare. If they are obliged
to fell one of these trees, they excuse themselves to it by
saying that it was the priest who made them do it. The
spirits take up their abode, by preference, in tall and stately
trees with great spreading branches. When the wind rustles
the leaves, the natives fancy it is the voice of the spirit ; and
they never pass near one of these trees without bowing
respectfully, and asking pardon of the spirit for disturbing
his repose. Among the Ignorrotes, in the district of Le-
panto, every village has its sacred tree, in which the souls
of the dead forefathers of the hamlet reside. Offerings are
made to the tree, and any injury done to it is believed to
entail some misfortune on the village. Were the tree cut
down, the village and all its inhabitants would inevitably
perish.3 The Dyaks believe that when a man dies by acci-
1 A. C. Kruijt, " Een en ander
aangaande het geestelijk en maatschap-
pelijk leven van den Poso-Alfoer,"
Mededeelingen van wege het Neder-
landsche Zendelinggenootschap, xxxix.
(1895), pp. 22, 138.
2 S. Gason, "The Dieyerie Tribe,"
Native Tribes of South Australia, p.
280; A. W. Howitt, "The Dieri and
other kindred Tribes of Central Aus-
tralia, "Journal of the Anthropological
Institute, xx. (1891), p. 89.
3 F. Blumentritt, " Der Ahnencultus
und die religiose Anschauungen der
Malaien des Philippinen - Archipels,"
Mittheilungen der Wiener Geogr. Gesell-
schaft, 1882, p. 159 sq. ; J. Mallat, Les
Philippines (Paris, 1846), i. 63 sq.
i SOULS OF DEAD IN TREES 179
dent, as by drowning, it is a sign that the gods mean to
exclude him from the realms of bliss. Accordingly his body
is not buried, but carried into the forest and there laid down.
iThe souls of such unfortunates pass into trees or animals or
(fish, and are much dreaded by the Dyaks, who abstain from
[using certain kinds of wood, or eating certain sorts of fish,
because they are supposed to contain the souls of the dead.1
Once, while walking with a Dyak through the jungle, Sir
Hugh Low observed that his companion, after raising his
sword to strike a great snake, suddenly arrested his arm and
suffered the reptile to escape. On asking the reason, he was
told by the Dyak that the bush in front of which they were
standing had been a man, a kinsman of his own, who, dying
some ten years before, had appeared in a dream to his widow
and told her that he had become that particular bamboo-tree.
Hence the ground and everything on it was sacred, and the
serpent might not be interfered with. The Dyak further
related that in spite of the warning given to the woman in
the vision, a man had been hardy enough to cut a branch of
the tree, but that the fool had paid for his temerity with his
life, for he died soon afterwards. A little bamboo altar stood
in front of the bush, on which the remnants of offerings
presented to the spirit of the tree were still visible when Sir
■ Hugh Low passed that way.'2 In Corea the souls of people
who die of the plague or by the roadside, and of women who
expire in childbed, invariably take up their abode in trees.
To such spirits offerings of cake, wine, and pork are made
on heaps of stones piled under the trees.3 Some of the
mountaineers on the north-west coast of New Guinea think
that the spirits of their ancestors live on the branches of trees,
on which accordingly they hang rags of red or white cotton,
always in the number of seven, or a multiple of seven ; also,
they place food on the trees or hang it in baskets from the
boughs.4 Among the Buryats of Siberia the bones of a
deceased shaman are deposited in a hole hewn in the trunk
1 F. Grabowsky, " Der Tod, etc., hours (London, 1898), i. 106 sq.
bei den Dajaken," Internationales 4 F. S. A. de Clercq, " De West-
Archiv fitr Ethnographic, ii. (1889), en Noordkust van Nederlandsch Nieuw-
P- 181. Guinea ," Tijdschrift van hel kon. Neder-
'- H. Low, Sarawak, p. 264. landsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap,
3 Mrs. Bishop, Korea andher Neigh- Tweede Serie, x. (1893), p. 199.
i So SOULS OF DEAD IN TREES chap.
of a great fir, which is then carefully closed up. Thenceforth
the tree goes by the name of the shaman's fir, and is looked
upon as his abode. Whoever cuts down such a tree will perish
with all his household. Every tribe has its sacred grove of
firs in which the bones of the dead shamans are buried. In
treeless regions these firs often form isolated clumps on the
hills, and are visible from afar.1 The Lkungen Indians of
British Columbia fancy that trees are transformed men, and
that the creaking of the branches in the wind is their voice."
In Croatia, they say that witches used to be buried under old
trees in the forest, and that their souls passed into the trees
and left the villagers in peace.3 A tree that grows on a
grave is regarded by the South Slavonian peasant as a sort
of fetish. Whoever breaks a twig from it, hurts the soul of
the dead, but gains thereby a magic wand, since the soul
embodied in the twig will be at his service.4 This reminds
us of the story of Polydorus in Virgil,5 and of the bleeding
pomegranate that grew on the grave of the fratricides
Eteocles and Polynices at Thebes.6 Similar stories are told
far away from the classic lands of Italy and Greece. In an
Annamite tale an old fisherman makes an incision in the
trunk of a tree which has drifted ashore ; but blood flows
from the cut, and it appears that an empress with her three
daughters, who had been cast into the sea, are embodied in
the tree." On the Slave Coast of West Africa the negroes
tell how from the mouldering bones of a little boy, who had
been murdered by his brother in the forest, there sprang up
an edible fungus, which spoke and revealed the crime to the
child's mother when she attempted to pluck it.b
In most, if not all, of these cases the spirit is viewed as
incorporate in the tree ; it animates the tree and must suffer
and die with it. But, according to another and probably
later opinion, the tree is not the body, but merely the abode
1 Journal of the Anthropological In- 5 Aeneid, iii. 22 sqq.
slitute, xxiv. (1895), pp. 8, 136. ° Philostratus, Imagines, ii. 29.
2 Fr. Boas, in Sixth Rep07-t on the " Landes, " Contes et legendes anna-
North- Western Tribes of Canada, p. 28 mites," No. 9, in Cochinechine fran-
(separate reprint from the Report of the caise : Excursions et Reconnaissances,
British Association for 1890). No. 20, p. 310.
3 F. S. Krauss, Volksglaube und 8 A. B. Ellis, The Yoruba-speaking
religi'eser Branch der Siidslaven, p. 36. Peoples of the Slave Coast of West
4 F. S. Krauss, loc. cit. Africa, pp. 134-136.
i TREES THE ABODE OF SPIRITS 181
of the tree-spirit, which can quit the injured tree as men quit
a dilapidated house. The people of Nias think that, when a
tree dies, its liberated spirit becomes a demon, which can kill
a cocoa-nut palm by merely lighting on its branches, and can
cause the death of all the children in a house by perching on
one of the posts that support it. Further, they are of opinion
that certain trees are at all times inhabited by roving demons
who, if the trees were damaged, would be set free to go about
on errands of mischief. Hence the people respect these trees,
and are careful not to cut them down.1 On the Tanga coast
of East Africa mischievous sprites reside in great trees, espe-
cially in the fantastically shaped baobabs. Sometimes they
appear in the shape of ugly black beings, but as a rule they
enter unseen into people's bodies, from which, after causing
much sickness and misery, they have to be cast out by the
sorcerer.2 In the Galla region of East Africa, where the
vegetation is magnificent, there are many sacred trees, the
haunts of jinn. Most of them belong to the sycamore and
maple species, but they do not all exhale an equal odour of
sanctity. The watisa, with its edible fruit, is least revered ;
people climb it to get the fruit, and this disturbs the jinn, who
naturally do not care to linger among its boughs. The gute
tubi, which has no edible fruit, is more sacred. Every Galla
tribe has its sacred tree, which is always one individual of a
particular species called lafto. When a tree has been con-
secrated by a priest it becomes holy, and no branch of it
may be broken. Such trees are loaded with long threads,
woollen bands, and bracelets ; the blood of animals is poured
on their roots and sometimes smeared on their trunks, and
pots full of butter, milk, and flesh are placed among the
branches or on the ground under them. In many Galla
tribes women may not tread on the shadow of sacred trees
or even approach the trees.3
Not a few ceremonies observed at cutting down haunted
trees are based on the belief that the spirits have it in their
power to quit the trees at pleasure or in case of need. Thus
when the Pelew Islanders are felling a tree, they conjure the
1 E. Modigliani, Un viaggio a Nias 3 Paulitschke, Ethnographie Nordost-
( Milan, 1890), p. 629. Afrikas : Die geistige Culturder Dand-
- O. Baumann, Usambara mid seine kil, Galla zoid Somal (Berlin, 1S96), p.
Nachbargebiete (Berlin, 1891), p. 57 <r(/. 34 sq.
i82 CEREMONIES AT FELLING TREES chap.
spirit of the tree to leave it and settle on another.1 The wily
negro of the Slave Coast, who wishes to fell an asJwrin tree,
but knows that he cannot do it so long as the spirit remains
in the tree, places a little palm-oil on the ground as a bait,
and then, when the unsuspecting spirit has quitted the tree
to partake of this dainty, hastens to cut down its late abode."
The Alfoors of Poso, in Central Celebes, believe that great
trees are inhabited by demons in human form, and the taller
the tree the more powerful the demon. Accordingly they
are careful not to fell such trees, and they leave offerings at
the foot of them for the spirits. But sometimes, when they
are clearing land for cultivation, it becomes necessary to cut
down the trees which cumber it. In that case the Alfoor
will call to the demon of the tree and beseech him to leave
his abode and go elsewhere, and he deposits food under the
tree as provision for the spirit on his journey. Then, and
not till then, he may fell the tree. Woe to the luckless
wight who should turn a tree-spirit out of his house without
giving him due notice!3 In Rotti, an island to the south
of Timor, when they fell a tree to make a coffin, they sacri-
fice a dog as compensation to the tree-spirit whose property
they are thus making free with. 4 The Mandelings of
Sumatra endeavour to lay the blame of all such misdeeds at
the door of the Dutch authorities. Thus when a man is
cutting a road through a forest and has to fell a tall tree
which blocks the way, he will not begin to ply his axe until
he has said : " Spirit who lodgest in this tree, take it not ill
that I cut down thy dwelling, for it is done at no wish of
mine but by order of the Controller." And when he wishes
to clear a piece of forest-land for cultivation, it is necessary
that he should come to a satisfactory understanding with
the woodland spirits who live there, before he lays low their
leafy dwellings. For this purpose he goes to the middle of
the plot of ground, stoops down, and pretends to pick up a
1 J. Kubary, "Die Religion der pelijklevenvanden Poso-Alfoer,"J/<?ak-
Pelauer," in Bastian's Allerlei aits deelingen va?i zvege het Nederlandsche
J 'oiks- mid Mensclienkunde, i. 52. Zendelinggenootschap, xl. (1S96), p. 28
2 A. B. Ellis, The Yoridm-speaking
sq.
n j.i r +1 cv n 4 /I, G. Heijmenne, " Zeden en Ge-
Pcoples of the Slave Coast, p. 1 1 5. J, ?' , T, ... „ „,..,
* J r j woonten op net enand Kottie, lija-
3 A. C. Kruijt, " Een en ander schrift voor Necrlands Indie, 1S44,
aangaande het geestelijk on maatschap- dl. i. p. 358.
i CEREMONIES AT FELLING TREES 183
letter. Then unfolding a bit of paper he reads aloud an
imaginary letter from the Dutch Government, in which he
is strictly enjoined to set about clearing the land without
delay. Having done so, he says : " You hear that, spirits.
I must begin clearing at once, or I shall be hanged."
There is a certain tree called vara which the Dyaks believe
to be inhabited by a spirit. Before they cut down one of
these trees they strike an axe into the trunk, leave it there,
and call upon the spirit either to quit his dwelling or to
give them a sign that he does not wish it to be meddled
with. Then they go home. Next day they visit the tree,
and if they find the axe still sticking in the trunk, they can
fell the tree without danger ; there is no spirit in it, or he
would certainly have ejected the axe from his abode. But if
they find the axe lying on the ground, they know that the
tree is inhabited and they will not fell it ; for it must surely
have been the spirit of the tree in person who expelled the
intrusive axe. Some sceptical Europeans, however, argue
that what casts out the axe is strychnine in the sap rather
than the tree-spirit. They say that if the sap is running,
the axe must necessarily be forced out by the action of heat
and the expansion of the exuding gutta ; whereas if the
axe remains in the trunk, this only shows that the tree is not
vigorous but ready to die."2 In the Greek island of Siphnos,
when woodmen have to fell a tree which they regard as pos-
sessed by a spirit, they are most careful, when it falls, to
prostrate themselves humbly and in silence lest the spirit
should chastise them as it escapes. Sometimes they put
a stone on the stump of the tree to prevent the egress of
the spirit.3 In some parts of Sumatra, so soon as a tree is
felled, a young tree is planted on the stump, and some betel
and a few small coins are also placed on it.4 The purpose
of the ceremony seems plain. The spirit of the tree is
offered a new home in the young tree planted on the stump
1 Th. A. L. Heyting, " Beschrijving North Borneo, i. 286 ; compare Jour-
der onder-afdeeling Groot-mandeling nal of the Anthropological Institute, xxi.
en Batang-natal," Tijdschrift van het (1892), p. 1 14.
Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundiz Genoot- „ _,._.,
, c .J . ,fc •. 3 J. T. Bent, The Cyclades, p. 27.
schap, Tweede Sene, xiv. (IS97), p. - '
28g sg. 4 Van Hasselt, Volksbeschrijving van
2 Crossland, quoted by H. Ling Roth, Midden- Sumatra (Leyden, 1882), p.
The Natives of Sarawak and British 156.
1 84 CEREMONIES AT FELLING TREES chap.
of the old one, and the offering of betel and money is meant
to compensate him for the disturbance he has suffered.
Similarly, when the Maghs of Bengal were obliged by Euro-
peans to cut down trees which the natives believed to be
tenanted by spirits, one of them was always ready with a
green sprig, which he ran and placed in the middle of the
stump when the tree fell, " as a propitiation to the spirit
which had been displaced so roughly, pleading at the same
time the orders of the strangers for the work."1 In Halma-
hera, however, the motive for placing a sprig on the stump is
said to be to deceive the spirit into thinking that the fallen
stem is still growing in its old place.2 German woodmen
make a cross upon the stump while the tree is falling, in the
belief that this enables the spirit of the tree to live upon the
stump.3 Before the Katodis fell a forest tree, they choose a
tree of the same kind and worship it by presenting a cocoa-
nut, burning incense, applying a red pigment, and begging it
to bless the undertaking.4 The intention, perhaps, is to induce
the spirit of the former tree to shift its quarters to the latter.
In clearing a wood, a Galelareese must not cut down the last
tree till the spirit in it has been induced to go away.5 When
the Dyaks fell the jungle on the hills, they often leave a few
trees standing on the hill-tops as a refuge for the dispossessed
tree-spirits.0 Similarly in India, the Gonds allow a grove of
typical trees to remain as a home or reserve for the woodland
spirits when they are clearing away a jungle.7 The Mundaris
have sacred groves which were left standing when the land
was cleared, lest the sylvan gods, disquieted at the felling of
the trees, should abandon the place.s The Miris in Assam
are unwilling to break up new land for cultivation so long as
there is fallow land available ; for they fear to offend the
1 W, Crooke, Introduction to the ° J. Perham, "Sea Dyak Religion,"
Popular Religion and Folklore of Nor- Journal of the Straits Branch of the
them India, p. 240. Royal Asiatic Society, No. 10 (Dec.
2 J. M. van Baarda, « He de Halma- 'f^' ?> I*7 ; **■ Lin| ^ The
Natives of Sarawak and British Aorth
heira," Bulletins de la Sociiti d? Anthro-
pologic de Paris, iv. (1893), p. 547
Borneo, i. 184.
7 Journal of the Anthropological In-
3 W. Mannhardt,2fcW«/^,p.83. sti^ xxv. (lg96)> p> I?a
* Journal Royal Asiatic Society, vii. 8 DaUon> Ethmlogy of Bmgah pp-
(l843)» P- 29. l86j l88. COmpare Bastian, Volker-
5 Bastian, Indonesien, i. 17. stiimme am Brahmaputra, p. 9.
i SPIRITS IN TREES 185
spirits of the woods by hewing down trees needlessly.1 On
the other hand, when a child has been lost, the Padams of
Assam think that it has been stolen by the spirits of the
wood ; so they retaliate on the spirits by felling trees till
they find the child. The spirits, fearing to be left without a
tree in which to lodge, give up the child, and it is found in
[the fork of a tree.2
Thus the tree is regarded, sometimes as the body, some-
! times as merely the house of the tree-spirit ; and when we
read of sacred trees which may not be cut down because
they are the seat of spirits, it is not always possible to say
with certainty in which way the presence of the spirit in the
tree is conceived. In the following cases, perhaps, the
trees are regarded as the dwelling-place of the spirits rather
than as their bodies. The Sea Dyaks point to many a tree
as sacred because it is the abode of a spirit or spirits, and to
cut one of these down would provoke the spirit's anger,
who might avenge himself by visiting the sacrilegious wood-
man with sickness.3 The Battas of Sumatra, have been
known to refuse to cut down certain trees because they
were the abode of mighty spirits who would resent the
injury.4 One of the largest and stateliest of the forest
trees in Perak is known as toallong ; it has a very poisonous
sap which produces great irritation when it comes into
contact with the skin. Many trees of this species have
large hollow projections on their trunks where branches have
been broken off. These projections are looked upon by the
Malays as houses of spirits, and they object strongly to cut
down trees that are thus disfigured, believing that the man
who fells one of them will die within the year. When clearings
are made in the forest, these trees are generally left standing
to the annoyance and expense of planters.5 The Siamese
fear to cut down any very fine trees, lest they should incur
1 Dalton, op. cit. p. 33 ; Bastian, op. ber 1882), p. 217; H. Ling Roth,
tit. p. 16. Compare W. Robertson The Natives of Sarawak and British
Smith, The Religion of the Semites? North Borneo, i. 184.
P- I32 Sll- 4 B. Hagen, " Beitrage zur Kennt-
'-' Dalton, op. cit. p. 25 ; Bastian, op. niss der Battareligion," Tijdschrift voor
cit. p. 37. Indische Taal- Land- en Volkcnkunde,
3 J. Perham, " Sea Dyak Religion," xxviii. 530, note.
Journal of the Straits Branch of the 5 W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, p.
Royal Asiatic Society, No. 10 (Decern- 202.
1 86 SPIRITS IN TREES chap.
the anger of the powerful spirits who inhabit them.1 In like
manner the Curka Coles of India believe that the tops of
trees are the abode of spirits who are disturbed by the felling
of the trees and will take vengeance.'2 The Parahiya, a
Dravidian tribe of Mirzapur, think that evil spirits live in
the sal, pipal, and mahua trees ; they make offerings to such
trees and will not climb into their branches.3 In Travancore
demons are supposed to reside in certain large old trees,
which it would be sacrilegious and dangerous to hew down.
A rough stone is generally placed at the foot of one of these
trees as an image or emblem, and turmeric powder is rubbed
on it.4 In the deserts of Arabia a recent traveller found a
great solitary acacia-tree which the Bedouin believed to be
possessed by a jinnee. Shreds of cotton and horns of goats
hung among the boughs, and nails were knocked into the
trunk. An Arab strongly dissuaded the traveller from cutting
a branch of the tree, assuring him that it was death to do
so.5 The Yourouks, who inhabit the southern coasts of
Asia Minor and the heights of Mount Taurus, have sacred
trees which they never cut down from fear of driving away
the spirits that own them.0 The old Prussians, it is said,
believed that gods inhabited high trees, such as oaks, from
which they gave audible answers to inquirers ; hence these
trees were not felled, but worshipped as the homes of
divinities.' The great oak at Romove was the especial
dwelling-place of the god ; it was veiled with a cloth, which
was, however, removed to allow worshippers to behold the
sacred tree.s The Samagitians thought that if any one
1 E. Young, The Kingdom of the 7 Erasmus Stella, " De Borussiae
Yellow Robe (Westminster, 1S98), p. antiquitatibus," in Novns orbis regi-
192 sq. onum ac insularum veteribus incog-
2 Bastian, Die Volker des b'stlichen nitarum, p. 510; Lasiczki (Lasicius),
Asien, i. 134. " De diis Samagitarum caeterorumque
3 W. Crooke, Tribes and Castes of Sarmatarum," in Respitblica sive Status
the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Regni Poloniae, Lituaniae, Prussiae,
iV- J-7Q. Livoniae, etc. (Elzevir, 1627), p. 299
4 c n/r 4. ti t j r r-r •„ sq. Lasiczki's work has been reprinted
* b. Mateer, I he Land of Charity* ,*,„•,, , , . , ,- . ,
-- J 'by W. Mannhardt, in Alagazin heraus-
"' ' gegeben von der Lettisch- Liter arischen
Ch. M. Doughty, Travels in Gesellschaft, xiv. 82 sqq. (Mitau, 1868).
Arabia Deserta (Cambridge, iSSS), 1. 8 Simon Griinau, Preussiche Chronik,
365- ed. Perlbach (Leipsic, 1876), p. 89:
6 Th. Bent, " The Yourouks of Asia " Prisca antiquorum Prutenorum rt-
Minor," Journal of the Anthropological ligio," in Resfublica sive Status Regni
Institute, xx. (1891), p. 275. Poloniae, etc., p. 321.
i SACRED GROVES 187
ventured to injure certain groves, or the birds or beasts in
them, the spirits would make his hands or feet crooked.1
Down to the nineteenth century the Esthonians stood in
such awe of many trees, which they considered as the seat
of mighty spirits, that they would not even pluck a flower
or a berry on the ground where the shadow of the trees fell ;
much less would they dare to break a branch from the tree
itself.2
Even where no mention is made of wood -spirits, we
may generally assume that when trees or groves are sacred
and inviolable, it is because they are believed to be either
inhabited or animated by sylvan deities. In Livonia there
is a sacred grove in which, if any man fells a tree or breaks
a branch, he will die within the year.3 The Wotjaks have
sacred groves. A Russian who ventured to hew a tree in
one of them fell sick and died next day.4 Near a chapel of
St. Ninian, in the parish of Belly, there stood more than a
century and a half ago a row of trees, " all of equal size,
thick planted for about the length of a butt," which were
" looked upon by the superstitious papists as sacred trees,
from which they reckon it sacriledge to take so much as a
branch, or any of the fruit."5 So in the island of Skye
some two hundred and fifty years ago there was a holy lake,
" surrounded by a fair wood, which none presumes to cut " ;
and those who ventured to infringe its sanctity by breaking
even a twig either sickened on the spot or were visited after-
wards by " some signal inconvenience." Sacrifices offered
at cutting down trees are doubtless meant to appease the
wood-spirits. In Gilgit it is usual to sprinkle goat's blood
on a tree of any kind before felling it.7 Before thinning a
grove a Roman farmer had to sacrifice a pig to the god or
goddess of the grove.8 The priestly college of the Arval
Brothers at Rome had to make expiation when a rotten
bough fell to the ground in the sacred grove, or when an old
1 Mathias Michov, in Novus Orbis 4 Max Buch, Die Wotjaken, p. 124.
regionuni ac insnlaritm veteribus incog- 5 Dalyell, Darker Superstitions oj
nitarum, p. 457. Scotland, p. 400.
- J. G. Kohl, Die deutsch-russischen 6 Dalyell, loc. cit.
Ostseeprovinzen, ii. 277. " Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindoo
3 Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie,x i. A'oosh, p. 116.
497 ; cp. ii. 540, 541. 8 Cato, De agri atltura, 139.
1 88 TREE-GODS chap.
tree was laid low by a storm or dragged down by a load
of snow on its branches.1
When a tree comes to be viewed, no longer as the bodyli
of the tree-spirit, but simply as its abode which it can quit!
at pleasure, an important advance has been made in religious
thought. Animism is passing into polytheism. In other
words, instead of regarding each tree as a living and conscious
being, man now sees in it merely a lifeless, inert mass,
tenanted for a longer or shorter time by a supernatural
being who, as he can pass freely from tree to tree, thereby
enjoys a certain right of possession or lordship over the
trees, and, ceasing to be a tree-soul, becomes a forest god
As soon as the tree-spirit is thus in a measure disengaged
from each particular tree, he begins to change his shape and
assume the body of a man, in virtue of a general tendency
of early thought to clothe all abstract spiritual beings in
concrete human form. Hence in classical art the sylvan
deities are depicted in human shape, their woodland character
being denoted by a branch or some equally obvious symbol.2
But this change of shape does not affect the essential
character of the tree-spirit. The powers which he exercised
as a tree-soul incorporate in a tree, he still continues to
wield as a god of trees. This I shall now prove in detail.
I shall show, first, that trees considered as animate beings
are credited with the power of making the rain to fall, the
sun to shine, flocks and herds to multiply, and women to
bring forth easily ; and, second, that the very same powers
are attributed to tree-gods conceived as anthropomorphic
beings or as actually incarnate in living men.
First, then, trees or tree-spirits are believed to give rain I
and sunshine. When the missionary Jerome of Prague was
persuading the heathen Lithuanians to fell their sacred
groves, a multitude of women besought the Prince of
Lithuania to stop him, saying that with the woods he was
destroying the house of god from which they had been wont
1 Henzen, Acta f rat rum arvalium note; Baumeister, Denkmaler des clas-
(Berlin, 1874), p. 138. sischen Altertwus, iii. 1665 sq. A
good representation of Silvanus bearing
2 On the representations of Silvanus, a pine branch is given in the Sale
the Roman wood-god, see Jordan in Catalogue of H. Hoffmann, Paris,
Preller's Rdmische Mythologies' i. 393 18S8, pt. ii.
i TREES GIVE RAIN 189
to get rain and sunshine.1 The Mundaris in Assam think
that if a tree in the sacred grove is felled, the sylvan gods
evince their displeasure by withholding rain.2 In Cambodia
each village or province has its sacred tree, the abode of a
spirit. If the rains are late, the people sacrifice to the
tree.3 In time of drought the elders of the Wakamba
assemble and take a calabash of cider and a goat to a
baobab-tree, where they kill the goat but do not eat it.4
When Ovambo women go out to sow corn they take with
them in the basket of seed two green branches of a particular
kind of tree (Peltophonun africanwn Sond.), one of which
they plant in the field along with the first seed sown. The
branch is believed to have the power of attracting rain ;
hence in one of the native dialects the tree goes by the
name of the " rain-bush." To extort rain from the tree-
spirit a branch is sometimes dipped in water, as we have
seen above.6 In such cases the spirit is doubtless supposed to
be immanent in the branch, and the water thus applied to
the spirit produces rain by a sort of sympathetic magic,
exactly as we saw that in New Caledonia the rain-makers
pour water on a skeleton, believing that the soul of the
deceased will convert the water into rain.' There is hardly
yoom to doubt that Mannhardt is right in explaining as a
rain-charm the European custom of drenching with water
the trees which are cut at certain popular festivals, as mid-
summer, Whitsuntide, and harvest.8
Again, tree-spirits make the crops to grow. Amongst
he Mundaris every village has its sacred grove, and " the
grove deities are held responsible for the crops, and are
especially honoured at all the great agricultural festivals." 9
The negroes of the Gold Coast are in the habit of sacrificing
at the foot of certain tall trees, and they think that if one of
1 Aeneas Sylvius, Opera (Bale, 157 1), i L. Decle, Three Years in Savage
p. 418 [wrongly numbered 420] ; cp. Africa (London, 1S98), p. 489.
Erasmus Stella, " De Borussiae anti- 5 H.Szhinz,De2iisch-Sridzvest Afrika,
tfuitatibus," in A'ovns Orbis regionuni p. 295 sq.
ac insidarnm veteribus incognitarum, 0 See above pp. 82 ii".
' 2 Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. ' Above> P- 99 sq.
j35_ 8 Mannhardt, B.A~. pp. 158, 159,
3 Aymonierin Cochinchinefrancaise: J70! l97> 2I4> 35I> 5X4-
Excursions et Reconnaissances, No. 16, 9 Dalton, Etlmology of Bengal, p.
p. 175 sq. 1S8.
\
190 TREES AND CROPS chap.
these were felled, all the fruits of the earth would perish.1
Before harvest the Wabondei of East Africa sacrifice a goat
to the spirit that lives in baobab-trees ; the blood is poured
into a hole at the foot of one of the trees. If the sacrifice
were omitted, the spirit would send disease and death among
the people.2 Swedish peasants stick a leafy branch in each
furrow of their corn-fields, believing that this will ensure an
abundant crop.3 The same idea comes out in the German and
French custom of the Harvest-May. This is a large branch
or a whole tree, which is decked with ears of corn, brought
home on the last waggon from the harvest-field, and fastened
on the roof of the farmhouse or of the barn, where it remains
for a year. Mannhardt has proved that this branch or tree
embodies the tree-spirit conceived as the spirit of vegetation
in general, whose vivifying and fructifying influence is thus
brought to bear upon the corn in particular. Hence in
Swabia the Harvest-May is fastened amongst the last stalks
of corn left standing on the field ; in other places it is planted
on the corn-field and the last sheaf cut is attached to its
trunk.4 The Harvest-May of Germany has its counterpart
in the eiresione of ancient Greece.5 The eiresione was a
branch of olive or laurel, bound about with ribbons and
hung with a variety of fruits. This branch was carried in
procession at a harvest festival and was fastened over the
door of the house, where it remained for a year. The object
of preserving the Harvest-May or the eiresione for a year is
that the life-giving virtue of the bough may foster the
growth of the crops throughout the year. By the end of the
year the virtue of the bough is supposed to be exhausted and
it is replaced by a new one. Following a similar train of
thought some of the Dyaks of Sarawak are careful at the
rice harvest to take up the roots of a certain bulbous plant,
which bears a beautiful crown of white and fragrant flowers.
These roots are preserved with the rice in the granary and
are planted again with the seed-rice in the following season ;
1 Villault, Relation des Costes ap- Nachbargebiete, p. 142.
fiellees Guince (Paris, 1669), p. 266 o T T, , „ ..,..„ ,
T , . rr r n, )■ , J L. Lloyd, Feasant Li fe in Sweden,
sq. ; Labat, Voyage da Lhevalier des aa
JIarchais en Guinee, Jsles voisines, et *■ '
a Cayenne (Paris, 1730), i. 338. 4 Mannhardt, B.K. p. 190 sqq.
2 O. Baumann, Usambara nnd seine 5 Mannhardt, A.JV.F. p. 212 sqq.
i TREES AND CROPS 191
for the Dyaks say that the rice will not grow unless a plant
of this sort be in the field.1
Customs like that of the Harvest-May appear to exist
in India and Africa. At a harvest festival of the Lhoosai
of South-Eastern India the chief goes with his people into
the forest and fells a large tree, which is then carried into
the village and set up in the midst. Sacrifice is offered,
and spirits and rice are poured over the tree. The ceremony
closes with a feast and a dance, at which the unmarried men
and girls are the only performers." Among the Bechuanas
the hack -thorn is very sacred, and it would be a serious
offence to cut a bough from it and carry it into the village
during the rainy season. But when the corn is ripe in the
ear the people go with axes, and each man brings home a
branch of the sacred hack-thorn, with which they repair the
village cattle-yard.3 According to another authority, it is a
rule with the Bechuanas that " neither the hook-thorn nor
the milk-tree must be cut down while the corn is on the
ground, for this, they think, would prevent rain. When I
was at Lattakoo, though Mr. Hamilton stood in much need
of some milk-tree timber, he durst not supply himself till
all the corn was gathered in." i Many tribes of South-
Eastern Africa will not cut down timber while the corn is
green, fearing that if they did so, the crops would be de-
stroyed by blight, hail, or early frost.5 Again, the fructifying
power of the tree is put forth at seed-time as well as at
harvest. Among the Aryan tribes of Gilgit, on the north-
western frontier of India, the sacred tree is the Chili, a
species of cedar {Juniper us cxcelsd). At the beginning of
wheat-sowing the people receive from the rajah's granary a
quantity of wheat, which is placed in a skin mixed with
sprigs of the sacred cedar. A large bonfire of the cedar
1 H. Low, Sarawak, p. 274; id., id., in Journal of the Anthropological
in Journal of the Anthropological In- Institute, xx. (1891), p. 140. Among
stitute, xxv. (1896), p. in. some of the hill-tribes of the Punjaub
2 T. H. Lewin, Wild Races of no one is allowed to cut grass or any
South-Eastern India, p. 270. green thing with an iron sickle till the
3 J. Mackenzie, Ten Years north of festival of the ripening grain has been
the Orange River, p. 385. celebrated ; otherwise the field -god
4 J. Campbell, Travels in South would be angry and send frost to
Africa, Second Journey, ii. 203. destroy or injure the harvest (Ibbetson,
5 Rev. J. Macdonald, MS. notes ; Outlines of Panjab Ethnography, p.
compare id., Light in Africa, p. 210 ; 121).
192 TREES AND CATTLE chap.
wood is lighted, and the wheat which is to be sown is held
over the smoke. The rest is ground and made into a large
cake, which is baked on the same fire and given to the
ploughman.1 Here the intention of fertilising the seed by-
means of the sacred cedar is unmistakable.
In all these cases the power of fostering the growth of
crops, and, in general, of cultivated plants, is ascribed to
trees. The ascription is not unnatural. For the tree is the
largest and most powerful member of the vegetable kingdom,
and man is familiar with it before he takes to cultivating corn.
Hence he naturally places the feebler and, to him, newer
plant under the dominion of the older and more powerful.
Again, the tree-spirit makes the herds to multiply and
blesses women with offspring. The sacred Chili or cedar of
Gilgit was supposed to possess this virtue in addition to
that of fertilising the corn. At the commencement of
wheat-sowing three chosen unmarried youths, after under-
going daily washing and purification for three days, used to
start for the mountain where the cedars grew, taking with
them wine, oil, bread, and fruit of every kind. Having
found a suitable tree they sprinkled the wine and oil on it,
while they ate the bread and fruit as a sacrificial feast.
Then they cut off the branch and brought it to the village,
where, amid general rejoicing, it was placed on a large
stone beside running water. " A goat was then sacrificed,
its blood poured over the cedar branch, and a wild dance
took place, in which weapons were brandished about, and
the head of the slaughtered goat was borne aloft, after
which it was set up as a mark for arrows and bullet-
practice. Every good shot was rewarded with a gourd full
of wine and some of the flesh of the goat. When the flesh
was finished the bones were thrown into the stream and a
general ablution took place, after which every man went to
his house taking with him a spray of the cedar. On arrival
at his house he found the door shut in his face, and on his
knocking for admission, his wife asked, ' What have you
brought?' To which he answered, 'If you want children,
I have brought them to you ; if you want food, I have
brought it ; if you want cattle, I have brought them ; what-
1 Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindoo A'oosk, p. 103 sq.
i TREES AND CA TTLE 193
ever you want, I have it.' The door was then opened and
he entered with his cedar spray. The wife then took some
of the leaves, and pouring wine and water on them placed
them on the fire, and the rest were sprinkled with flour and
suspended from the ceiling. She then sprinkled flour on
her husband's head and shoulders, and addressed him thus,
' Ai Shiri Bagerthum, son of the fairies, you have come from
far ! ' Shiri Bagerthum, ' the dreadful king,' being the form
of address to the cedar when praying for wants to be
fulfilled. The next day the wife baked a number of cakes,
and taking them with her, drove the family goats to the
Chili stone. When they were collected round the stone,
she began to pelt them with pebbles, invoking the Chili at
the same time. According to the direction in which the
goats ran off, omens were drawn as to the number and sex
of the kids expected during the ensuing year. Walnuts
and pomegranates were then placed on the Chili stone, the
cakes were distributed and eaten, and the goats followed to
pasture in whatever direction they showed a disposition to
go. For five days afterwards this song was sung in all the
houses : —
' Dread Fairy King, I sacrifice before you,
How nobly do you stand ! you have filled up my house,
You have brought me a wife when I had not one,
Instead of daughters you have given me sons.
You have shown me the ways of right,
You have given me many children.' " 1
Here the driving of the goats to the stone on which the
cedar had been placed is clearly meant to impart to them
the fertilising influence of the cedar. In Europe the May-
tree or May-pole is supposed to possess similar powers over
both women and cattle. In some parts of Germany on the
first of May the peasants set up May-trees at the doors of
stables and byres, one May-tree for each horse and cow; this
is thought to make the cows yield much milk.2 Camden
says of the Irish, "They fancy a green bough of a tree,
1 Biddulph, op. at. p. 106 sq. Peter, Vo/ksthumtiches aus Oster-
2 Mannhardt, B.K. p. 161; E. reichisch-Schlesien, ii. 286 ; Reinsberg-
Meier, Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Diiringsfeld, Fest - Kalendar aus Boh-
Gebrduc/ie aus Schivaben, p. 397 ; A. men, p. 210.
VOL. I O
(
194 TREES AND CATTLE chap.
fastened on May-day against the house, will produce plenty
of milk that summer."1 In Suffolk there was an old
custom, observed in most farm-houses, that any servant who
could bring in a branch of hawthorn in blossom on the first
of May was entitled to a dish of cream for breakfast.2
Similarly, " in parts of Cornwall, till certainly ten years
ago, any child who brought to a dairy on May morning a
piece of hawthorn in bloom, or a piece of fresh bracken,
long enough to surround the earthenware bowl in which
cream is kept, was given a bowl of cream." 3
On the second of July some of the Wends used to set up
an oak-tree in the middle of the village with an iron cock
fastened to its top ; then they danced round it, and drove
the cattle round it to make them thrive.4 Some of the
Esthonians believe in a mischievous spirit called Metsik,
who lives in the forest and has the weal of the cattle in his
hands. Every year a new image of him is prepared. On
an appointed day all the villagers assemble and make a
straw man, dress him in clothes, and take him to the common
pasture-land of the village. Here the figure is fastened to
a high tree, round which the people dance noisily. On
almost every day of the year prayer and sacrifice are offered
to him that he. may protect the cattle. Sometimes the
image of Metsik is made of a corn-sheaf and fastened to
a tall tree in the wood. The people perform strange antics
before it to induce Metsik to guard the corn and the cattle.5
The Circassians regard the pear-tree as the protector of
cattle. So they cut down a young pear-tree in the forest,
branch it, and carry it home, where it is adored as a
1 Quoted by Brand, Popular An- roses on the threshold, keep a piece of
tiquities, i. 227, Bohn's ed. red-hot iron on the hearth, or twine
2 County Folk-lore: Suffolk, col- branches of whitethorn and mountain-
lected and edited by Lady Eveline ash about the door. To save the milk
Camilla Gurdon, p. 117. they cut and peel boughs of mountain-
3 Mr. E. F. Benson, in a letter to ash, and bind the twigs round the
the author dated December 15th, 1892. milk-pails and the churn. See Lady
A somewhat different explanation of Vfilde,Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms,
these customs is that the green boughs and Superstitions of Ireland (London,
are intended to save the milk from the 1887), i. 196 sq.
witches, who make great efforts to 4 Mannhardt, B.K. p. 174.
steal it on May morning, and, if they 5 Holzmayer, "Osiliana," Verhand-
succeed, own it for the rest of the lungender Estnischen Gese/l. zu Dorpat,
year. Hence to keep off the witches vii. No. 2, p. 10^.; Mannhardt, B. K.
on that morning the Irish scatter prim- p. 407 sq.
/
I TREES AND WOMEN 195
divinity. Almost every house has one such pear-tree. In
autumn, on the day of the festival, the tree is carried into
the house with great ceremony to the sound of music and
amid the joyous cries of all the inmates, who compliment it
on its fortunate arrival. It is covered with candles, and a
cheese is fastened to its top. Round about it they eat, drink,
and sing. Then they bid the tree good-bye and take it
back to the courtyard, where it remains for the rest of the
year, set up against the wall, without receiving any mark of
respect.1
The common European custom of placing a green bush
on May Day before or on the house of a beloved maiden
probably originated in the belief of the fertilising power of
the tree-spirit.2 In some parts of Bavaria such bushes are
set up also at the houses of newly-married pairs, and the
practice is only omitted if the wife is near her confinement ;
for in that case they say that the husband has " set up a May-
bush for himself." 3 Among the South Slavonians a barren
woman, who desires to have a child, places a new chemise
on a fruitful tree on the eve of St. George's Day. Next
morning before sunrise she examines the garment, and if she
finds that some living creature has crept on it, she hopes
that her wish will be fulfilled within the year. Then she
puts on the chemise, confident that she will be as fruitful as
the tree on which the chemise has passed the night.4 Among
the Kara-Kirghiz barren women roll themselves on the ground
under a solitary apple-tree, in order to obtain offspring.5
Some of the hill-tribes of India have a custom of marrying
the bride and bridegroom to two trees before they are married
to each other. For example, among the Mundas the bride
1 Potocki, Voyage dans les steps dinia and its Resources (Rome and
d 'Astrakhan et du Caucase (Paris, London, 1885), p. 185 sq. In Bruns-
1S29), i. 309. wick the custom is observed at Whit-
2 Mannhardt, B.K. p. 163 sqq. To suntide (R. Andree, Braunschweiger
his authorities add for France, A. Mey- Volkskunde, p. 248).
rac, Traditions, continues, Ugendes et 3 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkeskunde
conies des -Ardennes p. 84 sqq. ; L. F. des j^nigreichs Bayern, i. 373.
Sauve, folk-lore des Hautes- Vosges,
p. 131 sq.; Berenger-Feraud, Supersti- F- S- Krauss, Volksglaube und re-
tions et survivances, v. 309 sq. ; for hS^er Branch der Siidslaven, p. 35.
Moravia, W. Miiller, Beitrdge zur 5 Radloff, Proben der Volkslitteratur
Volkskunde der Deutsc-hen in Mahren, der nordlichen Tiirkischen Stdmme,
p. 263 ; for Sardinia, R. Tennant, Sar- v. 2 (St. Petersburg, 18S5).
196 TREES AND WOMEN chap.
touches with red lead a ma/nvd-trce, clasps it in her arms,
and is tied to it ; and the bridegroom goes through a like
ceremony with a mango-tree.1 The intention of the custom
may perhaps be to communicate to the newly-wedded pair
the vigorous reproductive power of the trees.2 Lastly, the
power of granting to women an easy delivery at child-birth
is ascribed to trees both in Sweden and Africa. In some
districts of Sweden there was formerly a bardtrad or guar-
dian-tree (lime, ash, or elm) in the neighbourhood of every
farm. No one would pluck a single leaf of the sacred tree,
any injury to which was punished by ill-luck or sickness.
Pregnant women used to clasp the tree in their arms in
order to ensure an easy delivery.3 In some negro tribes of
the Congo region pregnant women make themselves gar-
ments out of the bark of a certain sacred tree, because they
believe that this tree delivers them from the dangers that
attend child-bearing.4 The story that Leto clasped a palm-
tree and an olive-tree or two laurel-trees, when she was about
to give birth to Apollo and Artemis, perhaps points to a
similar Greek belief in the efficacy of certain trees to facilitate
delivery.5
From this review of the beneficent qualities commonly
ascribed to tree-spirits, it is easy to understand why customs
like the May-tree or May-pole have prevailed so widely and
figured so prominently in the popular festivals of European
peasants. In spring or early summer or even on Midsummer
Day, it was and still is in many parts of Europe the custom
1 Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. Indian Notes and Queries, i. § no;
194 ; a similar custom is practised Ibbetson, Settlement Report of the
among the Kurmis, ibid., p. 319. Karnal District, p. 155 ; W. Crooke,
Among the Mundas the custom seems Tribes and Castes of the North-Western
now to have fallen into disuse (H. H. Provinces and Oudh, ii. 263 ; id.,
Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal: Introduction to the Popular Religion
Ethnographic Glossary, ii. 102). and Folklore of Northern India, pp.
2 The explanation has been suggested 258-261. I was formerly disposed to
by Air. W. Crooke {Journal of the An- connect the custom with totemism, but
thropological Institute, xxviii. (1S99), of this there seems to be no sufficient
p. 243). There are other facts, how- evidence.
ever, which point to a different ex- 3 Mannhardt, B.N. p. 51 sq.
planation, namely, that the practice . ., „ ,„, _ ...
is intended to avert possible evil con- * Mero la " Voyage to Congo, in
sequences from bride or bridegroom. ^nkerton s Voyages and Travels, xvi.
See J. G. Frazer, Totemism, p. 35 ; 236 Slh
Panjab Notes and Queries, ii. § 252, 5 Botticher, Der Baumkultus der
iii. §§ 12, 90, 562, iv. § 396 ; North Hellenen, p. 30 sq.
MAY- TREES 197
to go out to the woods, cut down a tree and bring it into the
village, where it is set up amid general rejoicings. Or the
people cut branches in the woods, and fasten them on every
house. The intention of these customs is to bring home to
the village, and to each house, the blessings which the tree-
spirit has in its power to bestow. Hence the custom in some
places of planting a May-tree before every house, or of carry-
ing the village May-tree from door to door, that every house-
hold may receive its share of the blessing. Out of the mass of
evidence on this subject a few examples may be selected.
Sir Henry Piers, in his Description of Westmeath, writing
in 1682 says: "On May-eve, every family sets up before
their door a green bush, strewed over with yellow flowers,
which the meadows yield plentifully. In countries where
timber is plentiful, they erect tall slender trees, which stand
high, and they continue almost the whole year ; so as a
stranger would go nigh to imagine that they were all signs
of ale-sellers, and that all houses were ale-houses." 1 In
Northamptonshire a young tree ten or twelve feet high used
to be planted before each house on May Day so as to appear
growing.2 " An antient custom, still retained by the Cornish,
is that of decking their doors and porches on the 1st of May
with green boughs of sycamore and hawthorn, and of plant-
ing trees, or rather stumps of trees, before their houses."
In the north of England it was formerly the custom for young
people to rise very early on the morning of the first of May,
and go out with music into the woods, where they broke
branches and adorned them with nosegays and crowns of
flowers. This done, they returned about sunrise and fas-
tened the flower-decked branches over the doors and windows
of their houses.4 At Abingdon in Berkshire young people
formerly went about in groups on May morning, singing a
carol of which the following are two of the verses —
" We've been rambling all the night ;
And sometime of this day ;
And now returning back again,
We bring a garland gay.
1 Quoted by Brand, Popular Anti- 3 Borlase, cited by Brand, op. cit. i.
quities, i. 246 (ed. Bohn). 222.
- Dyer, British Popular Customs,
p. 254. i Brand, op. cit. i. 212 St/.
igS MAY GARLANDS chap.
••A garland gay we bring you here :
And at your door we stand ;
It is a sprout well budded out,
The work of our Lord's hand." l
At the villages of Saffron Walden and Debden in Essex
on the first of May little girls go about in parties from door
to door singing a song almost identical with the above and
carrying garlands ; a doll dressed in white is usually placed
in the middle of each garland." Similar customs have
been and indeed are still observed in various parts of
England. The garlands are generally in the form of
hoops intersecting each other at right angles. Thus on
May morning the girls of the neighbouring villages used
to flock into Northampton bringing their garlands, which
they exhibited from house to house. The skeleton of
the garland was formed of two hoops of osier or hazel
crossing each other at right angles, and so twined with
flowers and ribbons that no part of them could be seen. In
the centre of the garlands were placed gaily dressed dolls,
one, two, or three in number according to the size of the
garland. The whole was fixed to a staff about five feet
long, by which it was carried. In showing their garlands
the children chanted some simple ditties and received in
return pennies, which furnished forth a feast on their return
to their homes. A merrv dance round the garland con-
eluded the festivity.3 At Uttoxeter groups of children cam-
garlands of flowers about the town on May Day. " The
garlands consist of two hoops, one passing through the
other, which give the appearance of four half- circles, and
they are decorated with flowers arid evergreens, and
surmounted with a bunch of flowers as a sort of crown,
and in the centre of the hoops is a pendant orange and
flowers." One or more of the children earn- a little pole
or stick upright with a bunch of flowers fastened to the top.
1 Dyer, Popular British Customs, children on their rounds include two
p. 233. which are almost identical with those
- Chambers, Book of Days, i. 5 78 ; sung at Abingdon in Berkshire. See
Dyer, op. cit. p. 237 sq. Dyer, op. cit. p. 255 sq. The same
3 Hone, Every Day Book, ii. 615 verses were formerly sung on May Day
sq. ; Dyer, British Popular Customs, at Hitchin in Hertfordshire (Hone,
p. 251 sq. At Polebrook in Xorth- Every Day Book, i. 567 sq. ; Dyer,
amptonshire the verses sung by the op. cit. p. 240 sq.).
i MA Y GARLANDS 199
They are themselves decorated with flowers and ribbons,
and receive pence from the houses which they visit.1 At
Watford in Hertfordshire, groups of children, almost entirely
girls, go about the streets from door to door on May Day-
singing some verses, of which two agree almost verbally
with those which, as we have seen, are sung at Abingdon in
Berkshire. They are dressed in white, and adorned with gay
ribbons and sashes of many hues. " Two of the girls carry
between them on a stick what they call ' the garland,' which,
in its simplest form, is made of two circular hoops, intersect-
ing each other at right angles ; a more elaborate form has,
in addition, smaller semicircles inserted in the four angles
formed by the meeting of the hoops at the top of ' the gar-
land.' These hoops are covered with any wild-flowers in
season, and are further ornamented with ribbons. The
' garland ' in shape reminds me of the ' Christmas ' which
used to form the centre of the Christmas decorations in
Yorkshire some few years ago, except that the latter had a
bunch of mistletoe inside the hoops." 2 A similar custom
was observed at Bampton-in-the-Bush in Oxfordshire down
to about fifty years ago. The garland consisted of two crossed
hoops covered with moss, flowers, and ribbons. Two girls,
known as the Lady and her Maid, bore the garland between
them on a stick ; and a boy called the Lord, who carried a
stick dressed with ribbons and flowers, collected contributions
from the spectators. From time to time the Lady sang a
few lines and was then kissed by the Lord.3 At Sevenoaks
in Kent the children carry boughs and garlands from door
to door on May Day. The boughs consist of sticks carried
upright with bunches of leaves and wild-flowers fastened to
the top. The garlands are formed of two hoops interlaced
cross-wise and covered with blue and yellow flowers from the
woods and hedges. Sometimes the garlands are fastened to
the end of a stick carried perpendicularly, sometimes they
hang from the middle of a stick borne horizontally by two
children.4 In the streets of Cambridge little girls regularly
1 Dyer, op. cit. p. 263. reported also from Combe, Headington,
2 Percy Manning, in Folklore, iv. and Islip, all in Oxfordshire (Dyer,
(1893), p. 403 sq. British Popular Customs, p. 261 sq.).
3 Id., in Folklore, viii. (1897), p. See below, p. 220 sq.
308. Customs of the same sort are 4 Dyer, op. cit. p. 243.
200 MA V CAR LANDS < HAP.
make their appearance every May Day with female dolls
enclosed in hoops, which arc covered with ribbons and
flowers. These they show to passers-by, inviting them to
remember the May Lady by paying a small sum to her
bearers.1 At Salisbury girls go through the streets on May
Day in pairs, carrying between them on a stick a circular
garland or hoop adorned with flowers and bows ; they visit
the shops asking for money. A similar custom is observed
at Wilton a few miles from Salisbury.2 It appears that a
hoop wreathed with rowan and marsh marigold, and bearing
suspended within it two balls, is still carried on May Day
by villagers in some parts of Ireland. The balls, which arc
sometimes covered with gold and silver paper, are said to
have originally represented the sun and moon/1 Jn some
villages of the Vosges Mountains on the first Sunday of May
young girls go in bands from house to house, singing a song
in praise of May, in which mention is made of the "bread
and meal that come in May." If money is given them, they
fasten a green bough to the door ; if it is refused, they wish
the family many children and no bread to feed them.1 In
the French department of Mayennc, boys who bore the
name of Maillotins used to go about from farm to farm on
the first of May singing carols, for which they received
money or a drink ; they planted a small tree or a
branch of a tree/' Among the Germans of Moravia on
the third Sunday before Easter, which goes by the
name of Laetare Sunday, it is customary in some places
for young girls to carry a small fir-tree about from door
to door, while they sing songs, for which they receive
1 W. II. I). Rouse, in Folklore, iv. "Laurel -bearing" a staff of olive-wood,
(1893)1 !'■ 5.5- ' have witnessed the decked with laurels, purple ribbons,
ceremony almost annually lor many and many-coloured flowers, was carried
years. li was performed this year in (procession, and attached to it wore
(1900) us usual. Many of die hoops two large globes representing tlie sun
have no doll, and ribboni ags <>f and moon, together with a number of
coloured cloth are more conspicuous smaller globes which stood lor the
than Rowers in their decoration. stars. Sec Proclus, quoted by Photius,
2 J. I'. Kinslie in Folk-lore, xi. Bibliotheca, p. .521, ed. Bekker.
(1900), i). 210. . _ _ ... , ,.,
» Lady Wilde, Ancient Cures, \V. Cotttt, Essat sur les fites n-
Charms, and Usages of Inland (I,,„- "gieuses, p. .07 v</-
don, 1 890), p. 101 sq. v\t the ancient " Revue des traditions populaires,
Greek festival of the Daphnephoria or ii. ( 1 887), p. 200.
i WHITSUNTIDE CUSTOMS 201
presents. The tree is tricked out with many-coloured
ribbons, and sometimes with (lowers and (\ycx\ egg-
shells, and its branches are twined together SO as to
form what is called a crown.1 In Corfu the children go
about singing May songs on the first of May. The boys
carry small cypresses adorned with ribbons, dowers, and the
fruits of the season. They receive a glass of wine at each
house. The girls carry nosegays. One of them is dressed
up like an angel, with gilt wings, and scatters flowers.2
On the Thursday before Whitsunday the Russian
villagers "go out into the woods, sing songs, weave gar-
lands, and cut down a young birch-tree, which they dress
Up in woman's clothes, or adorn with many-coloured shreds
and ribbons. After that comes a feast, at the end of which
they take the dressed-up birch-tree, carry it home to their
village with joyful dance and son-', and set it up in one of
the houses, where it remains as an honoured guesl till Whit-
sunday. On the two intervening days they pay visits to
tin- house where their • guest ' is; but on the third day,
Whitsunday, the}- take her to a stream and fling her into
its waters," throwing their garlands after her. "All over
Russia every village and every town is turned, a little before
Whitsunday, into a sort of garden. Everywhere along the
streets the young birch-trees stand in rows, cvny house and
every room is adorned with boughs, even the engines upon
the railway are for the time decked with green leaves."8
In this Russian custom the dressing of the birch in woman's
' loth,-; shows how clearly the tree is conceived as personal ;
and the throwing it into a stream is most probably a rain-
charm. In some villages of Allmark it was formerly the
custom for serving-men, grooms, and cowherds to go from
farm to fun, at Whitsuntide distributing crowns made of
birch branches and (lowers to the fanners ; these crowns
were hung Up in the houses and left till the following
year.4
In the neighbourhood of Zabem in Alsace bands of
1 W. Mtiller, Beitr&g ui Vblks- :i Raliton, Songs of the Russian
/:////,/,■ der Deutschen in M&hren (Wien People, p. 234 so.
und Olmiitz, 1893), pp. 319 sq.t 355.
359" ' \. Kulni, M&rkische Sagen mi,/
- Folklore, i. (1890), p. 5x8 too, Marchen, p. 05.
202 MAY-POLES IN SWEDEN chap.
people go about carrying May-trees. Amongst them is a
man dressed in a white shirt, with his face blackened ; in
front of him is carried a large May-tree, but each member of
the band also carries a smaller one. One of the company
bears a huge basket in which he collects eggs, bacon, and
so forth.1 In some parts of Sweden on the eve of May Day
lads go about carrying each a bunch of fresh-gathered birch
twigs, wholly or partially in leaf. With the village fiddler at
their head, they make the round of the houses singing May
songs ; the burden of their songs is a prayer for fine weather, a
plentiful harvest, and worldly and spiritual blessings. One of
them carries a basket in which he collects gifts of eggs and
the like. If they are well received they stick a leafy twig in
the roof over the cottage door.2
But in Sweden midsummer is the season when these
ceremonies are chiefly observed. On the Eve of St. John
(the twenty -third of June) the houses are thoroughly
cleansed and garnished with green boughs and flowers.
Young fir-trees are raised at the doorway and elsewhere
about the homestead ; and very often small umbrageous
arbours are constructed in the garden. In Stockholm
on this day a leaf- market is held at which thousands
of May -poles {Maj Stdnger), from six inches to twelve
feet high, decorated with leaves, flowers, slips of coloured
paper, gilt egg-shells strung on reeds, and so on, are ex-
posed for sale. Bonfires are lit on the hills, and the people
dance round them and jump over them. But the chief event
of the day is setting up the May-pole. This consists of a
straight and tall spruce-pine tree, stripped of its branches.
" At times hoops and at others pieces of wood, placed cross-
wise, are attached to it at intervals ; whilst at others it is
provided with bows, representing, so to say, a man with his
arms akimbo. From top to bottom not only the ' Maj
Stang ' (May-pole) itself, but the hoops, bows, etc., are orna-
mented with leaves, flowers, slips of various cloth, gilt egg-
shells, etc. ; and on the top of it is a large vane, or it may
be a flag." The raising of the May-pole, the decoration of
which is done by the village maidens, is an affair of much
1 Mannhardt, B.K. p. 162.
2 L. Lloyd, Peasant L'fe in Sweden, p. 255.
I MA Y-POLES IN ENGLAND 203
ceremony ; the people flock to it from all quarters, and dance
round it in a great ring.1 In some parts of Bohemia also
a May-pole or midsummer-tree is erected on St. John's. Eve.
The lads fetch a tall fir or pine from the wood and set it up
on a height, where the girls deck it with nosegays, garlands,
and red ribbons. It is afterwards burned.2
It would be needless to illustrate at length the custom,
which has prevailed in various parts of Europe, such as
England, France, and Germany, of setting up a village May-
tree or May-pole on May Day.3 A few examples will
suffice. The puritanical writer Stubbs in his Anatomie of
Abuses has described with manifest disgust how they used to
bring in the May-pole in the days of good Queen Bess.
His description affords us a vivid glimpse of merry England
in the olden time. " They have twentie or fourtie yoke of
oxen, every oxe havying a sweete nosegaie of flowers tyed
on the tippe of his homes, and these oxen draw home this
Maie poole (this stinckyng idoll rather), which is covered all
over with flowers and hearbes, bounde rounde aboute with
stringes, from the top to the bottome, and sometyme painted
with variable colours, with twoo or three hundred men,
women and children followyng it with great devotion. And
thus beyng reared up, with handkerchiefes and fiagges
streamyng on the toppe, they strawe the grounde aboute,
binde greene boughes about it, sett up sommer haules,
bowers, and arbours, hard by it. And then fall they to
banquet and feast, to leap and daunce aboute it, as the
heathen people did at the dedication of their idolles, whereof
this is a perfect patterne, or rather the thyng itself." 4 Of
the Cornish people their historian Borlase says : " From
towns they make incursions, on May Eve, into the country,
cut down a tall elm, bring it into the town with rejoicings,
and having fitted a straight taper pole to the end of it, and
painted it, erect it in the most public part, and upon holidays
1 L. Lloyd, op. cit. p. 257 sqq. Every Day Book, i. 547 sqq., ii. 574
2 Reinsberg-Diiringsfeld, Fest-Kal- sqq. ; Chambers, Book of Days, i. 574
endar aus Bohmen, p. 308 sq. A fuller sqq. ; Dyer, British Popular Custotns,
description of the ceremony will be p. 228 sqq. ; W. Mannhardt, Bau/u-
given later (ch. iv. § 2). kultus, p. 168 sqq.
3 For the evidence see Brand, Popu- 4 Quoted by Brand, Popular Anti-
lar Antiquities, i. 234 sqq. ; Hone, quiiies, i. 235.
204 MA Y-POLES
CHAP.
and festivals dress it with garlands of flowers, or ensigns
and streamers." 1 In Northumberland, down apparently to
near the end of the eighteenth century, young people of both
sexes used to go out early on May morning to gather the
flowering thorn and the dew off the grass, which they brought
home with music and acclamations ; then, having dressed a
pole on the green with garlands, they danced about it. A
syllabub made of warm milk from the cow, sweet cakes, and
wine was prepared for the feast ; and a kind of divination,
to discover who should be wedded first, was practised by
dropping a marriage-ring into the syllabub and fishing for it
with a ladle.2 In Swabia on the first of May a tall fir-tree
used to be fetched into the village, where it was decked with
ribbons and set up ; then the people danced round it merrily
to music. The tree stood on the village green the whole
year through, until a fresh tree was brought in next May
Day.3 At Bordeaux on the first of May the boys of each
street used to erect in it a May-pole, which they adorned
with garlands and a great crown ; and every evening during
the whole of the month the young people of both sexes
danced singing about the pole.4 Down to the present
day May-trees decked with flowers and ribbons are set up
on May Day in every village and hamlet of gay Provence.
Under them the young folk make merry and the old folk
rest5
In all these cases, apparently, the custom is or was to
bring in a new May-tree each year. However, in England
the village May-pole seems as a rule, at least in later times,
to have been permanent, not renewed annually.6 Villages of
Upper Bavaria renew their May-pole once every three, four,
or five years. It is a fir-tree fetched from the forest, and
amid all the wreaths, flags, and inscriptions with which it is
bedecked, an essential part is the bunch of dark green foliage
1 Quoted by Brand, op. cit. i. 237, traditions des provinces de France, p.
note.
137.
2 Hutchinson, Hist, of Northumber- 5 Berenger-Feraud, Superstitions et
land (1778), vol. ii., Appendix, p. 14, survivances (Paris, 1S96), v. 308 so.
quoted by Dyer, British Popular Compare id., Reminiscences populaires
Customs, p. 257. de la Prove?ice, pp. 21 so., 26, 27.
3 E. Meier, Deutsche Sagen, Sitten u Hone, Every Day Book, i. 547
und Gebrduche aus Schwabcn, p. 396. sqq. ; Chambers, Book of Days, i.
4 De Nore, Coutumes, mythes et 571.
i MA Y-POLES 205
left at the top " as a memento that in it we have to do, not
with a dead pole, but with a living tree from the greenwood."1
'We can hardly doubt that originally the practice everywhere
was to set up a new May-tree every year. As the object of
the custom was to bring in the fructifying spirit of vegetation,
newly awakened in spring, the end would have been defeated
if, instead of a living tree, green and sappy, an old withered
one had been erected year after year or allowed to stand
permanently. When, however, the meaning of the custom
had been forgotten, and the May-tree was regarded simply
as a centre for holiday merry-making, people saw no reason
I for felling a fresh tree every year, and preferred to let the
isame tree stand permanently, only decking it with fresh
•flowers on May Day. But even when the May-pole had thus
become a fixture, the need of giving it the appearance of
being a green tree, not a dead pole, was sometimes felt.
Thus at Weverham in Cheshire " are two May-poles, which
are decorated on this day (May Day) with all due attention
to the ancient solemnity; the sides are hung with garlands,
and the top terminated by a birch or other tall slender tree
with its leaves on ; the bark being peeled, and the stem
spliced to the pole, so as to give the appearance of one tree
from the summit." 2 Thus the renewal of the May-tree is
like the renewal of the Harvest-May; each is intended to
secure a fresh portion of the fertilising spirit of vegetation,
and to preserve it throughout the year. But whereas the
efficacy of the Harvest-May is restricted to promoting the
growth of the crops, that of the May-tree or May-branch
extends also, as we have seen, to women and cattle. Lastly,
it is worth noting that the old May-tree is sometimes burned
at the end of the year. Thus in the district of Prague
young people break pieces off the public May-tree and place
them behind the holy pictures in their rooms, where they
remain till next May Day, and are then burned on the
hearth.3 In Wiirtemberg the bushes which are set up on
the houses on Palm Sunday are sometimes left there for a
1 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde 3 Reinsberg-Diiringsfeld, Fest-Kal-
des Kbnigreichs Bayern, i. 372. endar aics Bohmen, p. 2 1 7 ; Mannhardt,
2 Hone, Every Day Book, ii. B.K. p. 566.
597 sq-
206 TREE-SPIRITS chap.
year and then burnt.1 The eiresione (the Harvest-May of
Greece) was perhaps burnt at the end of the year.'-'
So much for the tree-spirit conceived as incorporate or
immanent in the tree. We have now to show that the tree-
spirit is often conceived and represented as detached from
the tree and clothed in human form, and even as embodied
in living men or women. The evidence for this anthropo
morphic representation of the tree-spirit is largely to be
found in the popular customs of European peasantry. These
will be described presently, but before examining them we
may notice an Esthonian folk-tale which illustrates the same
train of thought very clearly. Once upon a time, so runs
the tale, a young peasant was busy raking the hay in a
meadow, when on the rim of the horizon a heavy thunder-
cloud loomed black and angry, warning him to make
haste with his work before the storm should break. He
finished in time, and was wending his way homeward, when
under a tree he espied a stranger fast asleep. " He will be
drenched to the skin," thought the good-natured young
fellow to himself, " if I allow him to sleep on." So he
stepped up to the sleeper and shaking him forcibly roused
him from his slumber. The stranger started up, and at sight
of the thunder-cloud, which now darkened the sky, he
blenched, fumbled in his pockets, and finding nothing in
them wherewith to reward the friendly swain, he said, " This
time I am your debtor. But the time will come when I
shall be able to repay your kindness. Remember what I
tell you. You will enlist. You will be parted from your
friends for years, and one day a feeling of homesickness will
come over you in a foreign land. Then look up, and you
will see a crooked birch-tree a few steps from you. Go to
it, knock thrice on the trunk, and ask, ' Is the Crooked One
at home ? ' The rest will follow." With these words the
stranger hastened away and was out of sight in a moment.
The peasant also went his way, and soon forgot all about
the matter. Well, time went by and part of the stranger's
prophecy came true. For the peasant turned soldier and
1 Birlinger, Volksthiimlickes ans 2 Aristophanes, Plutus, 1054; Mann-
er/; wa/w/, ii. 74 sq. ; Mannhardt, B.K. hardt, A. W.F. p. 222 sq.
p. 566.
i IN HUMAN SHAPE 207
served in a cavalry regiment for years. One day, when he
was quartered with his regiment in the north of Finland, it
fell to his turn to tend the horses while his comrades were
roistering in the tavern. Suddenly a great yearning for
home, such as he had never known before, came over the
lonely trooper ; tears started to his eyes, and dear visions of
his native land crowded on his soul. Then he bethought
him of the sleeping stranger in the wood, and the whole
scene came back to him as fresh as if it had happened
yesterday. He looked up, and there, strange to tell, he was
aware of a crooked birch-tree right in front of him. More
in jest than in earnest he went up to it and did as the
stranger had bidden him. Hardly had the words, " Is the
Crooked One at home ? " passed his lips when the stranger
himself stood before him and said, " I am glad you have
come. I feared you had forgotten me. You wish to be at
home, do you not ? " The trooper said yes, he did. Then
the Crooked One cried into the tree, " Young folks, which of
you is the fleetest ? " A voice from the birch replied,
" Father, I can run as fast as a moor-hen flies." " Well, I
need a fleeter messenger to-day." A second voice answered,
" I can run like the wind." " I need a swifter envoy," said
the father. Then a third voice cried, " I can run like the
thought of man." " You are after my own heart. Fill a
bag full of gold and take it with my friend and benefactor
to his home." Then he caught the soldier by the hat, crying,
"The hat to the man, and the man to the house!" The
same moment the soldier felt his hat fly from his head.
When he looked about for it, lo ! he was at home in the old
familiar parlour wearing his old peasant clothes, and the
great sack of money stood beside him. Yet on parade and
at the roll-call he was never missed. When the man who
told this story was asked, " Who could the stranger be ? " he
answered, " Who but a tree-elf? Hl
There is an instructive class of cases in which the tree-
spirit is represented simultaneously in vegetable form and in
1 Boecler-Kreutzwald, Der Ehsloi the return of the trooper to his old
aberglaubische Gebrduche, Weiscn und home was, like that of the war-broken
Gewohnheiten, pp. 112-114. Some veteran in Campbell's poem, only a
traits in this story seem to suggest that soldier's dream.
20S THE LITTLE MA Y ROSE chap.
human form, which are set side by side as if for the express
purpose of explaining each other. In these cases the human
representative of the tree-spirit is sometimes a doll or puppet,
sometimes a living person ; but whether a puppet or a
person, it is placed beside a tree or bough ; so that together
the person or puppet, and the tree or bough, form a sort of
bilingual inscription, the one being, so to speak, a translation
of the other. Here, therefore, there is no room left for doubt
that the spirit of the tree is actually represented in human
form. Thus in Bohemia, on the fourth Sunday in Lent,
young people throw a puppet called Death into the water ;
then the girls go into the wood, cut down a young tree, and
fasten to it a puppet dressed in white clothes to look like
a woman ; with this tree and puppet they go from house
to house collecting gratuities and singing songs with the
refrain —
" We carry Death out of the village,
We bring Summer into the village." *■
Here, as we shall see later on, the " Summer " is the spirit
of vegetation returning or reviving in spring. In some
parts of our own country children go about asking for pence
with some small imitations of May-poles, and with a finely-
dressed doll which they call the Lady of the May.2 In
these cases the tree and the puppet are obviously regarded
as equivalent.
At Thann, in Alsace, a girl called the Little May Rose,
dressed in white, carries a small May-tree, which is gay with
garlands and ribbons. Her companions collect gifts from
door to door, singing a song —
" Little May Rose turn round three times,
Let us look at you round and round !
Rose of the May, come to the greenwood away,
We will be merry all.
So we go from the May to the roses."
In the course of the song a wish is expressed that those
who give nothing may lose their fowls by the marten, that
1 Reinsberg-Durmgsfeld,/rt\rf-Aa/i?tt- 2 Chambers, Book of Days, i. 573.
dar ans Bb'hmen, p. 86 sqq. ; Mann- Compare the Cambridge custom, de-
hard t, B.K. p. 156. scribed above, p. 199 sq.
i GREEN GEORGE 209
their vine may bear no clusters, their tree no nuts, their field
no corn ; the produce of the year is supposed to depend on
the gifts offered to these May singers.1 Here and in the
cases mentioned above, where children go about with green
boughs or garlands on May Day singing and collecting money,
the meaning is that with the spirit of vegetation they bring
plenty and good luck to the house, and they expect to be
paid for the service. In Russian Lithuania, on the first of
May, they used to set up a green tree before the village.
Then the rustic swains chose the prettiest girl, crowned
her, swathed her in birch branches and set her beside the
May-tree, where they danced, sang, and shouted "O May!
O May!"2 In Brie (Isle de France) a May-tree is set up
in the midst of the village ; its top is crowned with flowers ;
lower down it is twined with leaves and twigs, still lower
with huge green branches. The girls dance round it, and
at the same time a lad wrapt in leaves and called Father
May is led about.3 In the small towns of the Franken Wald
mountains in Northern Bavaria, on the second of May, a
Walter tree is erected before a tavern, and a man dances
round it, enveloped in straw from head to foot in such a
way that the ears of corn unite above his head to form a
crown. He is called the Walter, and used to be led in
procession through the streets, which were adorned with sprigs
of birch.4 In Carinthia, on St. George's Day (the twenty-third
of April), the young people deck with flowers and garlands
a tree which has been felled on the eve of the festival. The
tree is then carried in procession, accompanied with music
and joyful acclamations, the chief figure in the procession
being the Green George, a young fellow clad from head to
foot in green birch branches. At the close of the ceremonies
the Green George, that is an effigy of him, is thrown into
the water. It is the aim of the lad who acts Green George
to step out of his leafy envelope and substitute the effigy so
adroitly that no one shall perceive the change. In many
1 Mannhardt, B.K. p. 312. hardt, B.K. p. 312 sq. The word
2 Mannhardt B.K. p. 313. Walber probably comes from Walbur-
gis, which is doubtless only another
Ibid. p. 314. form Qf tjie better known Walpurgis.
4 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde The second of May is called Walburgis
des Konigreichs Bayern, iii. 357; Mann- Day, at least in this part of Bavaria.
VOL. I p
210 GREEN GEORGE chap.
places, however, the lad himself who plays the part of Green
George is ducked in a river or pond, with the express
intention of thus ensuring rain to make the fields and
meadows green in summer. In some places the cattle are
crowned and driven from their stalls to the accompaniment
of a song —
" Green George we bring,
Green George we accompany,
May he feed our herds well.
If not, to the water with him." l
Here we see that the same powers of making rain and
fostering the cattle, which are ascribed to the tree-spirit
regarded as incorporate in the tree, are also attributed to the
tree-spirit represented by a living man.
Among the gypsies of Transylvania and Roumania the
festival of Green George is the chief celebration of spring.
Some of them keep it on Easter Monday, others on St.
George's Day. On the eve of the festival a young willow
tree is cut down, adorned with garlands and leaves, and set
up in the ground. Women with child place one of their
garments under the tree, and leave it there over night ; if
next morning they find a leaf of the tree lying on the
garment, they know that their delivery will be easy. Sick
and old people go to the tree in the evening, spit on it
thrice, and say, " You will soon die, but let us live." Next
morning the gypsies gather about the willow. The chief
figure of the festival is Green George, a lad who is concealed
from top to toe in green leaves and blossoms. He throws a few
handfuls of grass to the beasts of the tribe, in order that they
may have no lack of fodder throughout the year. Then he
he takes three iron nails, which have lain for three days and
nights in water, and knocks them into the willow ; after
which he pulls them out and throws them into a running
stream to propitiate the water-spirits. Finally, a pretence is
made of throwing Green George into the water, but in fact
it is only a puppet made of branches and leaves which is
ducked in the stream.2 In this version of the custom the
powers of granting an easy delivery to women and of com-
1 Mannhardt, B.K. p. 313^/. religidser Branch der Zigeuner (Miinster
2 H. von Wlislocki, Volksglanbe und i. W. 1891), p. 148^.
i ORAON FESTIVAL 211
municating vital energy to the sick and old are clearly
ascribed to the willow ; while Green George, the human
double of the tree, bestows food on the cattle, and further
ensures the favour of the water-spirits by putting them in
indirect communication With the tree.
An example of the double representation of the spirit of
vegetation by a tree and a living man is reported from
Bengal. The Oraons have a festival in spring while the sal-
trees are in blossom, because they think that at this time the
marriage of earth is celebrated and the sal flowers are
necessary for the ceremony. On an appointed day the
villagers go with their priest to the Sarna, the sacred grove,
a remnant of the old sal forest in which a goddess Sarna
Burhi, or woman of the grove, is supposed to dwell. She is
thought to have great influence on the rain ; and the priest
arriving with his party at the grove sacrifices to her five
fowls, of which a morsel is given to each person present.
Then they gather the sal flowers and return laden with them
to the village. Next day the priest visits every house,
carrying the flowers in a wide open basket. The women of
each house bring out water to wash his feet as he approaches,
and kneeling make him an obeisance. Then he dances with
them and places some of the sal flowers over the door of the
house and in the women's hair. No sooner is this done
than the women empty their water-jugs over him, drenching
him to the skin. A feast follows, and the young people,
with sal flowers in their hair, dance all night on the village
green.1 Here, the equivalence of the flower-bearing priest to
the goddess of the flowering tree comes out plainly. For
she is supposed to influence the rain, and the drenching of
the priest with water is, doubtless, like the ducking of the
Green George in Carinthia. and elsewhere, a rain-charm.
Thus the priest, as if he were the tree goddess herself, goes
from door to door dispensing rain and bestowing fruitful-
ness on each house, but especially on the women.
Without citing more examples to the same effect, we
may sum up the results of the preceding pages in the
words of Mannhardt. " The customs quoted suffice to
establish with certainty the conclusion that in these spring
1 Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 261.
212 SPIRIT OF VEGETATION chap.
processions the spirit of vegetation is often represented both;
by the May-tree and in addition by a man dressed in green
leaves or flowers or by a girl similarly adorned. It is the'
same spirit which animates the tree and is active in the
inferior plants and which we have recognised in the May-;
tree and the Harvest-May. Quite consistently the spirit is
also supposed to manifest his presence in the first flower
of spring and reveals himself both in a girl representing a
May-rose, and also, as giver of harvest, in the person of the
Walter. The procession with this representative of the
divinity was supposed to produce the same beneficial effects
on the fowls, the fruit-trees, and the crops as the presence of
the deity himself. In other words, the mummer was re-
garded not as an image but as an actual representative of
the spirit of vegetation ; hence the wish expressed by the
attendants on the May-rose and the May-tree that those who
refuse them gifts of eggs, bacon, and so forth, may have no share
in the blessings which it is in the power of the itinerant spirit
to bestow. We may conclude that these begging processions
with May-trees or May-boughs from door to door (' bringing
the May or the summer ') had everywhere originally a
serious and, so to speak, sacramental significance ; people
really believed that the god of growth was present unseen in
the bough ; by the procession he was brought to each house
to bestow his blessing. The names May, Father May, May
Lady, Queen of the May, by which the anthropomorphic
spirit of vegetation is often denoted, show that the idea
of the spirit of vegetation is blent with a personification 5
of the season at which his powers are most strikingly ■
manifested." 1
Thus far we have seen that the tree-spirit or the spirit
of vegetation in general is represented either in vegetable
form alone, as by a tree, bough, or flower ; or in vegetable
and human form simultaneously, as by a tree, bough, or
flower in combination with a puppet or a living person. It
remains to show that the representation of him by a tree,
bough, or flower is sometimes entirely dropped, while the
representation of him by a living person remains. In this
case the representative character of the person is generally
1 Mannhardt, B.A'. p. 315 sq.
i IN HUMAN FORM 213
marked by dressing him or her in leaves or flowers ; some-
times too it is indicated by the name he or she bears.
We saw that in Russia at Whitsuntide a birch-tree is
dressed in woman's clothes and set up in the house. Clearly
equivalent to this is the custom observed on Whit-Monday
by Russian girls in the district of Pinsk. They choose the
prettiest of their number, envelop her in a mass of foliage
taken from the birch-trees and maples, and carry her about
through the village. In a district of Little Russia they take
round a " poplar," represented by a girl wearing bright
flowers in her hair.1 At Whitsuntide in Holland poor
women used to go about begging with a little girl called
Whitsuntide Flower {Pinxterbloem, perhaps a kind of iris) ;
she was decked with flowers and sat in a waggon. In North
Brabant she wears the flowers from which she takes her
name and a song is sung —
"Whitsuntide Flower,
Turn yourself once round." 2
All over Provence on the first of May pretty little girls
are dressed in white, decked with crowns and wreaths of
roses, and set on seats or platforms strewn with flowers
in the streets, while their companions go about begging
coppers for the Mayos or Mayes, as they are called, from the
passers-by.3 In some parts of the Ardennes on May Day
a small girl, clad in white and wearing a chaplet of flowers
on her head, used to go from house to house with her play-
mates, collecting contributions and singing that it was May,
the month of May, the pretty month of May, that the wheat
was tall, the hawthorn in bloom, and the lark carolling in
the sky.4
In Ruhla (Thuringen) as soon as the trees begin to grow
green in spring, the children assemble on a Sunday and go
1 Ralston, Songs of the Russian 4 A. Meyrac, Traditions, continues,
People, p. 234. Ugetides et contes des Ardennes (Charle-
2 Mannhardt, B.K. p. 318; Grimm, ville, 1890), pp. 79-82. The girl was
Deutsche Mythologies ii. 657. called the Trimouzette. A custom of
3 A. de Nore, Coututnes, mythes et the same general character was practised
traditions des provinces de France, down to recent times in the Jura
p. 17 sq. ; Berenger-Feraud, Rimini- (Berenger-Feraud, Reminiscences popu-
scences populaires de la Provence, p. 1 sq. laires de la Provence, p. iS).
2i4 THE LITTLE LEAF MAN chap.
out into the woods, where they choose one of their play-
mates to be the Little Leaf Man. They break branches
from the trees and twine them about the child till only his
shoes peep out from the leafy mantle. Holes are made in
it for him to see through, and two of the children lead the
Little Leaf Man that he may not stumble or fall. Singing
and dancing they take him from house to house, asking for
gifts of food such as eggs, cream, sausages, and cakes.
Lastly, they sprinkle the Leaf Man with water and feast on
the food they have collected.1 At Rollshausen on the
Schwalm, in Hesse, when afternoon service is over on Whit-
sunday, the schoolboys and schoolgirls go out into the
wood and there clothe a boy from head to foot in leaves so
that nobody would know him. He is called the Little
Whitsuntide Man. A procession is then formed. Two
boys lead their leaf-clad playfellow ; two others precede him
with a basket ; and two girls with another basket bring up
the rear. Thus they go from house to house singing
hymns or popular songs and collecting eggs and cakes in
the baskets. When they have feasted on these, they strip
their comrade of his verdant envelope on an open place in
front of the village.2 In some parts of Rhenish Bavaria at
Whitsuntide a boy or lad is swathed in the yellow blossom
of the broom, the dark green twigs of the firs, and other
foliage. Thus attired he is known as the Quack and goes
from door to door, whirling about in the dance, while an
appropriate song is chanted and his companions levy con-
tributions.3
In England the best-known example of these leaf-clad
mummers is the Jack-in-the-Green, a chimney-sweeper who
walks encased in a pyramidal framework of wickerwork,
which is covered with holly and ivy, and surmounted by a
crown of flowers and ribbons. Thus arrayed he dances on
May Day at the head of a troop of chimney-sweeps, who
1 F. A. Reimann, Deutsche Folks- 3 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde
feste im neunzehnten Jahrhundert (Wei- des Konigreichs Bayern, iv. 2, p. 359 stj.
mar, 1839), p. 159 sq. ; Mannhardt, Similarly in the Departement de l'Ain
B.K. p. 320; Witzschel, Sagen, Sitten (France) on the first of May eight or
und Gebriiuche aits Thiiringen, p. 211. ten boys unite, clothe one of their
2 W. Kolbe, Hessische Volks-Sitlen number in leaves, and go from house
und Gebriiuche im I.ichie der heid- to house begging (Mannhardt, Bauni-
nischen Vorzeit (Marburg, 1888), p. 70. kullus, p. 318).
i JACK-IN-THE-GREEN 215
collect pence.1 The ceremony was witnessed at Cheltenham
on the second of May 1892, by Mr. W. H. D. Rouse, who
has described in detail the costume of the performers. They
were all chimney-sweeps of the town. Jack-in-the-Green or
the Bush-carrier was enclosed in a wooden framework on
which leaves were fastened so as to make a thick cone about
six feet high, topped with a crown which consisted of two
wooden hoops placed crosswise and covered with flowers.
The leafy envelope was unbroken except for a single open-
ing through which peered the face of the mummer. From
time to time in their progress through the streets the per-
formers halted, and three of them, dressed in red, blue,
and yellow respectively, tripped lightly round the leaf-
covered man to the inspiring strains of a fiddle and a tin
whistle, on which two of their comrades with blackened faces
discoursed sweet music. The leader of the procession was a
clown fantastically clad in a long white pinafore or blouse
with coloured fringes and frills, and wearing on his head a
beaver hat of the familiar pattern, the crown of which hung
loose and was adorned with ribbons and a bird or a bundle
of feathers. Large black rings surrounded his eyes, and a
red dab over mouth and chin lent a pleasing variety to his
countenance. He contributed to the public hilarity by
flapping the yellow fringe of his blouse with quaint gestures
and occasionally fanning himself languidly. His efforts
were seconded by another performer, who wore a red fool's
cap, all stuck with flowers, and a white pinafore enriched
with black human figures in front and a black gridiron-like
pattern, crossed diagonally by a red bar, at the back. Two
boys in white pinafores, with similar figures, or stars, on the
breast, and a fish on the back, completed the company.
Formerly there used to be a man in woman's clothes, who
personated the clown's wife.2 In some parts also of France
a young fellow is encased in a wicker framework covered
with leaves and is led about.3 In Frickthal (Aargau) a
similar frame of basketwork is called the Whitsuntide Basket.
1 Mannhardt, B.K. p. 322 ; Hone, pp. 50-53. On May Day 1 891 I saw
Every Day Book, i. 583 .?</</. ; Dyer, a Jack-in-the-Green in the streets of
British Bopnlar Customs, p. 230 ,s</. Cambridge.
'-' W. H. D. Rouse, " May-day in
Cheltenham," Folklore, iv. (1893), 3 Mannhardt, B.K. p. 323.
216 THE WHITSUNTIDE BASKET chap.
As soon as the trees begin to bud, a spot is chosen in the
wood, and here the village lads make the frame with all
secrecy, lest others should forestall them. Leafy branches
are twined round two hoops, one of which rests on the
shoulders of the wearer, the other encircles his calves ; holes
are made for his eyes and mouth ; and a large nosegay
crowns the whole. In this guise he appears suddenly in
the village at the hour of vespers, preceded by three boys
blowing on horns made of willow bark. The great object
of his supporters is to set up the Whitsuntide Basket beside
the village well, and to keep it and him there, despite the
efforts of the lads from neighbouring villages, who seek to
carry off the Whitsuntide Basket and set it up at their own
well.1 In the neighbourhood of Ertingen (Wiirtemberg) a
masker of the same sort, known as the Lazy Man {Latsmann),
goes about the village on Midsummer Day ; he is hidden
under a great pyramidal or conical frame of wicker-work,
ten or twelve feet high, which is completely covered with
sprigs of fir. He has a bell which he rings as he goes, and
he is attended by a suite of persons dressed up in character
— a footman, a colonel, a butcher, an angel, the devil, the
doctor, etc. They march in Indian file and halt before
every house, where each of them speaks in character, except
the Lazy Man, who says nothing. With what they get by
begging from door to door they hold a feast.2
In the class of cases of which the above are specimens
it is obvious that the leaf-clad person who is led about is
equivalent to the May-tree, May-bough, or May-doll, which is
carried from house to house by children begging. Both are
representatives of the beneficent spirit of vegetation, whose visit
to the house is recompensed by a present of money or food.
Often the leaf-clad person who represents the spirit of\
vegetation is known as the king or the queen ; thus, fori
example, he or she is called the May King, Whitsuntide
King, Queen of May, and so on. These titles, as Mann-
hardt observes, imply that the spirit incorporate in vegeta-
tion is a ruler, whose creative power extends far and wide.3
1 Mannhardt, B.K. p. 323.
2 Birlinger, Volksthiimliches mis Schwabeu, ii. 114 sq. ; Mannhardt, B.K.
p. 325. 3 Mannhardt, B.K. p. 314^/.
THE MA Y KING
217
In a village near Salzwedel a May-tree is set up at
Whitsuntide and the boys race to it ; he who reaches it first
is king ; a garland of flowers is put round his neck and in
his hand he carries a May-bush, with which, as the pro-
cession moves along, he sweeps away the dew. At each
house they sing a song, wishing the inmates good luck,
referring to the " black cow in the stall milking white milk,
black hen on the nest laying white eggs," and begging a gift
of eggs, bacon, and so on.1 In some villages of Brunswick at
Whitsuntide a May King is completely enveloped in a May-
bush. In some parts of Thuringen also they have a May
King at Whitsuntide, but he is dressed up rather differently.
A frame of wood is made in which a man can stand ; it is
completely covered with birch boughs and is surmounted
by a crown of birch and flowers, in which a bell is fastened.
This frame is placed in the wood and the May King gets
into it. The rest go out and look for him, and when they
have found him they lead him back into the village to the
magistrate, the clergyman, and others, who have to guess
who is in the verdurous frame. If they guess wrong, the
May King rings his bell by shaking his head, and a forfeit
of beer or the like must be paid by the unsuccessful guesser.2
At Hildesheim, in Hanover, five or six young fellows go
about on the afternoon of Whit-Monday cracking long whips
in measured time and collecting eggs from the houses. The
chief person of the band is the Leaf King, a lad swathed so
completely in birchen twigs that nothing of him can be seen
but his feet. A huge head-dress of birchen twigs adds to
his apparent stature. In his hand he carries a long crook, with
which he tries to catch stray dogs and children.3 In some
parts of Bohemia on Whit-Monday the young fellows dis-
1 Kuhn unci Schwartz, Norddeittsche
Sagen, Marchen und Gebrauche, p. 380.
2 Kuhn unci Schwartz, op. cit. p.
384 ; Mannhardt, B.K. p. 342. At
YVahrstedt in Brunswick the boys at
Whitsuntide choose by lot a king and
a high-steward (fuste-meier). The
latter is completely concealed in a
May-bush, wears a wooden crown
wreathed with flowers, and carries a
wooden sword. The king, on the
other hand, is only distinguished by a
nosegay in his cap, and a reed, with a
red ribbon tied to it, in his hand.
They beg for eggs from house to house,
threatening that, where none are given,
none will be laid by the hens through-
out the year. See R. Andree, Braun-
schweiger Volkskunde, p. 249 sq.
3 K. Seifart, Sagen, Marchen,
Schwdnke und Gebrauche aits Stadt und
Stiff Hildesheim, Zweite Auflage
(Hildesheim, 1889), p. i8o:r</.
218 THE GRASS KING chap.
guise themselves in tall caps of birch bark adorned with
flowers. One of them is dressed as a king and dragged on
a sledge to the village green, and if on the way they pass a
pool the sledge is always overturned into it. Arrived at
the green they gather round the king ; the crier jumps on a
stone or climbs up a tree and recites lampoons about each
house and its inmates. Afterwards the disguises of bark are
stripped off and they go about the village in holiday attire,
carrying a May-tree and begging. Cakes, eggs, and corn are
sometimes given them.1 At Grossvargula, near Langensalza,
in the eighteenth century a Grass King used to be led about
in procession at Whitsuntide. He was encased in a pyramid
of poplar branches, the top of which was adorned with a
royal crown of branches and flowers. He rode on horseback
with the leafy pyramid over him, so that its lower end
touched the ground, and an opening was left in it only for
his face. Surrounded by a cavalcade of young fellows, he
rode in procession to the town hall, the parsonage, and so on,
where they all got a drink of beer. Then under the seven
lindens of the neighbouring Sommerberg, the Grass King
was stripped of his green casing; the crown was handed to;
the Mayor, and the branches were stuck in the flax fields in
order to make the flax grow tall.2 In this last trait the
fertilising influence ascribed to the representative of the tree-
spirit comes out clearly. In the neighbourhood of Pilsen
(Bohemia) a conical hut of green branches, without any door,
is erected at Whitsuntide in the midst of the village. To
this hut rides a troop of village lads with a king at their
head. He wears a sword at his side and a sugar-loaf hat of
rushes on his head. In his train are a judge, a crier, and a
personage called the Frog-flayer or Hangman. This last is
a sort of ragged merryandrew, wearing a rusty old sword and
bestriding a sorry hack. On reaching the hut the crier
dismounts and goes round it looking for a door. Finding
none, he says, " Ah, this is perhaps an enchanted castle ;
the witches creep through the leaves and need no door."
At last he draws his sword and hews his way into the hut,
1 Reinsberg-Diiringsfeld, Fest-Kal- feste im neimzeknten Jahrhundert, pp.
endar aits Bohmen, p. 260 sq. ; 157*159; Mannhardt, B.K. p. 347 sq. ;
Mannhardt, />'. A*, p. 342.fr/. Witzschel, Sagen, Sitten und Gebrauche
2 F. A. Reimann, Deutsche Volks- aits Thiiringen, p. 203.
i WHITSUNTIDE KING AND QUEEN 219
where there is a chair, on which he seats himself and pro-
ceeds to criticise in rhyme the girls, farmers, and farm-
servants of the neighbourhood. When this is over, the
Frog-flayer steps forward and, after exhibiting a cage with
frogs in it, sets up a gallows on which he hangs the frogs in
a row.1 In the neighbourhood of Plas the ceremony differs
in some points. The king and his soldiers are completely
clad in bark, adorned with flowers and ribbons ; they all
carry swords and ride horses, which are gay with green
branches and flowers. While the village dames and girls
are being criticised at the arbour, a frog is secretly pinched
and poked by the crier till it quacks. Sentence of death is
passed on the frog by the king ; the hangman beheads it
and flings the bleeding body among the spectators. Lastly,
the king is driven from the hut and pursued by the soldiers.2
The pinching and beheading of the frog are doubtless, as
Mannhardt observes,3 a rain-charm. We have seen 4 that
some Indians of the Orinoco beat frogs for the express
purpose of producing rain, and that killing a frog is a
German rain-charm.
Often the spirit of vegetation in spring is represented by a
queen instead of a king. In the neighbourhood of Libchowic
(Bohemia), on the fourth Sunday in Lent, girls dressed in white
and wearing the first spring flowers, as violets and daisies,
in their hair, lead about the village' a girl who is called the
Queen and is crowned with flowers. During the procession,
which is conducted with great solemnity, none of the girls
may stand still, but must keep whirling round continually
and singing. In every house the Queen announces the
arrival of spring .and wishes the inmates good luck and
blessings, for which she receives presents.0 In German
Hungary the girls choose the prettiest girl to be their Whit-
suntide Queen, fasten a towering wreath on her brow, and
carry her singing through the streets. At every house they
stop, sing old ballads, and receive presents.6 In the south-
1 Reinsberg-Duringsfeld, Fest-Kdl- 3 b.K. p. 355.
endar mis Bohmen, p. 253 sqq. * Above, p. 103.
5 Reinsberg-Duringsfeld, Fest-Kal-
- Reinsberg-Duringsfeld, Fest-KaU endar aus Bohmen, p. 93 ; Mann-
endar aus Bohmen, p. 262; Mannhardt, hardt, B.K. p. 344.
B.K p. 353 *</■ ° Mannhardt, B.K. p. 343 sq.
220 THE MAY QUEEN chap.
east of Ireland on May Day the prettiest girl used to be
chosen Queen of the district for twelve months. She was
crowned with wild flowers ; feasting, dancing, and rustic
sports followed, and were closed by a grand procession in
the evening. During her year of office she presided over
rural gatherings of young people at dances and merry-
makings. If she married before next May Day her
authority was at an end, but her successor was not elected
till that day came round.1 The May Queen is common in
France 2 and familiar in England.
Again the spirit of vegetation is sometimes represented
by a king and queen, a lord and lady, or a bridegroom and
bride. Here again the parallelism holds between the
anthropomorphic and the vegetable representation of the
tree-spirit, for we have, seen above that trees are sometimes
married to each other.3 In a Bohemian village near
Koniggratz on Whit-Monday the children play the king's
game, at which a king and queen march about under a
canopy, the queen wearing a garland, and the youngest girl
carrying two wreaths on a plate behind them. They are
attended by boys and girls called groom's men and brides-
maids, and they go from house to house' collecting gifts.4
Near Grenoble, in France, a king and queen are chosen on
the first of May and are set on a throne for all to see.5 At
Headington, near Oxford, children used to carry garlands
from door to door on May Day. Each garland was borne
by two girls, and they were followed by a lord and lady —
a boy and girl linked together by a white handkerchief, of
which each held an end, and dressed with ribbons, sashes,
and flowers. At each door they sang a verse —
" Gentlemen and ladies,
We wish you happy May ;
We come to show you a garland,
Because it is May-day."
1 Dyer, British Popular Customs, 3 Above, p. 176 sq.
P- 270 sq. i Reinsberg-Diiringsfeld, Fest-Kal-
- Mannhardt, B.K. p. 344 Sq. ; endar aus Bohmen, p. 265 sq. ; Mann-
Cortet, Fetes religieuses, p. 160 sqq. ; hardt, B.K. p. 422.
Monnier, Traditions populaires com- 5 Mormier, Traditions populaires
parks, p. 282 sqq. ; Berenger-Feraud, cotnparees, p. 304 ; Cortet, Fetes reli-
Reminiscences populaires de la Provence, gieuses, p. 16 1 ; Mannhardt, B. K. p.
P- 17 sq. 423.
i WHITSUN BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM 221
On receiving money the lord put his arm about his
lady's waist and kissed her.1 In some Saxon villages at
Whitsuntide a lad and a lass disguise themselves and hide
in the bushes or high grass outside the village. Then the
whole village goes out with music " to seek the bridal
pair." When they find the couple they all gather round
them, the music strikes up, and the bridal pair is led
merrily to the village. In the evening they dance. In
some places the bridal pair is called the prince and the
princess."
In a parish of Denmark it used to be the custom at
Whitsuntide to dress up a little girl as the Whitsun-bride
{pinse-brudeti) and a little boy as her groom. She was
decked in all the finery of a grown-up bride, and wore a
crown of the freshest flowers of spring on her head. Her
groom was as gay as flowers, ribbons, and knots could make
him. The other children adorned themselves as best they
could with the yellow flowers of the trollius and caltha.
Then they went in great state from farmhouse to farmhouse,
two little girls walking at the head of the procession as
bridesmaids, and six or eight outriders galloping ahead
on hobby-horses, to announce their coming. Contributions
of eggs, butter, loaves, cream, coffee, sugar, and tallow-
candles were received and conveyed away in baskets.
When they had made the round of the farms, some of
the farmers' wives helped to arrange the wedding feast,
and the children danced merrily in clogs on the stamped
clay floor till the sun rose and the birds began to sing.
All this is now a thing of the past. Only the old folks
still remember the little Whitsun - bride and her mimic
pomp.3
In the neighbourhood of Briancon (Dauphine) on May-
Day the lads wrap up in green leaves a young fellow whose
sweetheart has deserted him or married another. He lies
down on the ground and feigns to be asleep. Then a girl
1 Brand, Popular Antiquities, i. 2 E. Sorrimer, Sagen, Marcken und
233 S(l- 5 Mannhardt, B.K. p. 424. Gebrauche aus Sachsen und Thiirin-
We have seen (p. 199) that a custom gen, p. 151 sq. ; Mannhardt, B.K. p.
of the same sort used to be observed 431 sq.
at Bampton-in-the-Bush in Oxford- 3 H. F. Feilberg, in Folk-lore, vi.
shire. (1895), P- 194 -r'7- "
222 THE BRIDEGROOM OF. MA V chap.
who likes him, and would marry him, comes and wakes
him, and raising him up offers him her arm and a flag.
So they go to the alehouse, where the pair lead off the
dancing. But they must marry within the year, or they
are treated as old bachelor and old maid, and are debarred
the company of the young folk. The lad is called the
bridegroom of the month of May {le fiance du mots de May).
In the alehouse he puts off his garment of leaves, out of
which, mixed with flowers, his partner in the dance makes
a nosegay, and wears it at her breast next day, when he
leads her again to the alehouse.1 Like this is a Russian
custom observed in the district of Nerechta on the Thursday
before Whitsunday. The girls go out into a birch-wood,
wind a girdle or band round a stately birch, twist its lower
branches into a wreath, and kiss each other in pairs through
the wreath. The girls who kiss through the wreath call
each other gossips. Then one of the girls steps forward, and
mimicking a drunken man, flings herself on the ground, rolls
on the grass, and feigns to fall fast asleep. Another girl
wakens the pretended sleeper and kisses him ; then the whole
bevy trips singing through the wood to twine garlands, which
they throw into the water. In the fate of the garlands
floating on the stream they read their own.2 Here the
part of the sleeper was probably at one time played by
a lad. In these French and Russian customs we have a
forsaken bridegroom, in the following a forsaken bride. On
Shrove Tuesday the Slovenes of Oberkrain drag a straw
puppet with joyous cries up and down the village ; then
they throw it into the water or burn it, and from the height
of the flames they judge of the abundance of the next
harvest. The noisy crew is followed by a female masker,
who drags a great board by a string and gives out that she
is a forsaken bride.3
Viewed in the light of what has gone before, the
awakening of the forsaken sleeper in these ceremonies prob-
ably represents the revival of vegetation in spring. But it
is not easy to assign their respective parts to the forsaken
1 This custom was told to Mann- 2 Mannhardt, B.K. p. 434 sq.
hardt by a French prisoner in the war
of 1870-71 {B.K. p. 434). 3 Ibid. p. 435.
i BRUD'S BED 223
bridegroom and to the girl who wakes him from his
slumber. Is the sleeper the leafless forest or the bare earth
of winter? Is the girl who wakens him the fresh verdure
or the genial sunshine of spring ? It is hardly possible, on
the evidence before us, to answer these questions. The
Oraons of Bengal, it may be remembered, celebrate the
marriage of earth in the springtime, when the sal-tree is in
blossom. But from this we can hardly argue that in the
European ceremonies the sleeping bridegroom is " the dream-
ing earth " and the girl the spring blossoms.
In the Highlands of Scotland the revival of vegetation
in spring used to be graphically represented as follows. On
Candlemas Day (the second of February) in the Hebrides "the
mistress and servants of each family take a sheaf of oats, and
dress it up in women's apparel, put it in a large basket, and
lay a wooden club by it, and this they call Brud's bed ; and
then the mistress and servants cry three times, ' Briid is
come, Brlid is welcome.' This they do just before going to
bed, and when they rise in the morning they look among
the ashes, expecting to see the impression of Brud's club
there ; which if they do they reckon it a true presage of a
good crop and prosperous year, and the contrary they take
as an ill omen." x The same custom is described by another
witness thus : " Upon the night before Candlemas it is
usual to make a bed with corn and hay, over which some
blankets are laid, in a part of the house near the door.
When it is ready, a person goes out and repeats three times,
. . . ' Bridget, Bridget, come in ; thy bed is ready.' One
or more candles are left burning near it all night." 2
1 Martin, " Description of the
Western Islands of Scotland," in
Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, iii.
613 ; Mannhardt, B.K. p. 436. The
Rev. James Macdonald, of Reay in
Caithness, was assured by old people
that the sheaf used in making Brud's
bed was the last sheaf cut at harvest
(J. Macdonald, Religion and Myth, p.
141). Later on we shall see that the
last sheaf is often regarded as embody-
ing the spirit of the corn, and special
care is therefore taken of it.
2 John Ramsay of Ochtertyre, Scot-
land and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth
Century, edited by Alex. Allardyce
(Edinburgh, 1S88), ii. 447. At Bal-
linasloe in Galwayshire it is customary
to fasten a cross of twisted corn in the
roof of the cottages on Candlemas Day.
The cross is fastened by means of a knife
stuck through a potato, and remains
in its place for months, if not for a
year. This custom (of which I was
informed by Miss Nina Hill in a letter
dated 5th May 1898) may be con-
nected with the Highland one described
in the text.
224 THE MA Y BRIDE chap.
Often the marriage of the spirit of vegetation in spring,
though not directly represented, is implied by naming the
human representative of the spirit " the Bride," and dressing
her in wedding attire. Thus in some villages of Altmark at
Whitsuntide, while the boys go about carrying a May-tree
or leading a boy enveloped in leaves and flowers, the girls
lead about the May Bride, a girl dressed as a bride with a
great nosegay in her hair. They go from house to house,
the May Bride singing a song in which she asks for a
present, and tells the inmates of each house that if they
give her something they will themselves have something the
whole year through ; but if they give her nothing they will
themselves have nothing.1 In some parts of Westphalia
two girls lead a flower-crowned girl called the Whitsuntide
Bride from door to door, singing a song in which they ask
for eggs.2 At Waggum in Brunswick, when service is over
on Whitsunday, the village girls assemble, dressed in white
or bright colours, decked with flowers, and wearing chaplets
of spring flowers in their hair. One of them represents the
May Bride, and carries a crown of flowers on a staff as a
sign of her dignity. As usual the children go about from
cottage to cottage singing and begging for eggs, sausages,
cakes, or money. In other parts of Brunswick it is a boy
clothed all in birch leaves who personates the May Bride.3
In Bresse in the month of May a girl called la Mariee is
tricked out with ribbons and nosegays and is led about by a
gallant. She is preceded by a lad carrying a green May-
tree, and appropriate verses are sung.4
8 5. Tree-tvorship in Antiquity
Such then are some of the ways in which the tree-spirit
or the spirit of vegetation is represented in the customs of
our European peasantry. From the remarkable persistence
and similarity of such customs all over Europe we are
justified in concluding that tree- worship was once an im-
1 Kuhn, Markische Sagen mid kunde (Brunswick, 1896), p. 248.
Marchen, p. 318 sqq. ; Mannhardt, 4 Monnier, Traditions popitlaires
B.K. p. 437. compares, p. 283 sq. ; Cortet, Fetes
2 Mannhardt, B.K. p. 438. religieuses, p. 162 sq. ; Mannhardt,
3 R. Andree, Braunschweiger Volks- B.K. p. 439 sq.
i TREE-WORSHIP IN ANTIQUITY 225
portant element in the religion of the Aryan race in Europe,
and that the rites and ceremonies of the worship were
marked by great uniformity everywhere, and did not sub-
stantially differ from those which are still or were till lately
observed by our peasants at their spring and midsummer
festivals. For these rites bear internal marks of great
antiquity, and this internal evidence is confirmed by the
resemblance which the rites bear to those of rude peoples
elsewhere.1 Therefore it is hardly rash to infer, from this
consensus of popular customs> that the Greeks and Romans,
like the other Aryan peoples of Europe, once practised
forms of tree-worship similar to those which are still kept
up by our peasantry. In the palmy days of ancient civilisa-
tion, no doubt, the worship had sunk to the level of vulgar
superstition and rustic merrymaking, as it has done among
ourselves. We need not therefore be surprised that the
traces of such popular rites are few and slight in ancient
literature. They are not less so in the polite literature of
modern Europe ; and the negative argument cannot be
allowed to go for more in the one case than in the other.
Enough, however, of positive evidence remains to confirm
the presumption drawn from analogy. Much of this evi-
dence has been collected and analysed with his usual learn-
ing and judgment by W. Mannhardt.2 Here I shall con-
tent myself with citing certain Greek festivals which,
though unnoticed, I believe, by Mannhardt, seem to be the
classical equivalents of an English May Day in the olden
time.
Every few years the Boeotians of Plataea held a festival
which they called the Little Daedala. On the day of the
festival they went out into an ancient oak forest, the trees
of which were of gigantic girth. Here they set some boiled
meat on the ground, and watched the birds that gathered
round it. When a raven was observed to carry off a piece
of the meat and settle on an oak, the people followed it and
cut down the tree. With the wood of the tree they made
an image, dressed it as a bride, and placed it on a bullock-
cart with a bridesmaid beside it. It seems then to have
1 Above, pp. 189 sqq., 195, 211.
2 See especially his Antike IValdiind Feldkulte.
VOL. I O
226 THE DAEDALA chap.
been drawn to the banks of the river Asopus and back to
the town, attended by a piping and dancing crowd. After
the festival the image was put away and kept till the cele-
bration of the Great Daedala, which fell only once in sixty
years, and was held by all the people of Boeotia. On this
occasion all the images, fourteen in number, that had accumu-
lated from the celebrations of the Little Daedala were dragged
on wains in procession to the river Asopus, and then to the
top of Mount Cithaeron. Here an altar had been constructed
of square blocks of wood fitted together, with brushwood
heaped over it. Animals were sacrificed by being burned
on the altar, and the altar itself, together with the images, was
consumed by the flames. The blaze, we are told, rose to a
prodigious height and was seen for many miles. To explain
the origin of the festival a story ran that once upon a time
Hera had quarrelled with Zeus and left him in high dudgeon.
To lure her back Zeus gave out that he was about to marry
the nymph Plataea, daughter of the river Asopus. He had
a fine oak cut down, shaped and dressed as a bride, and con-
veyed on a bullock-cart. Transported with rage and jealousy,
Hera flew to the cart, and tearing off the veil of the pretended
bride, discovered the deceit that had been practised on her.
Her rage now turned to laughter, and she became reconciled
to her husband Zeus.1
The resemblance of this festival to some of the European
spring and midsummer festivals is tolerably close. We have
seen that in Russia at Whitsuntide the villagers go out into
the wood, fell a birch-tree, dress it in woman's clothes, and
bring it back to the village with dance and song. On the
third day it is thrown into the water.2 Again, we have seen
that in Bohemia on Midsummer Eve the village lads fell a
tall fir or pine-tree in the wood and set it up on a height,
where it is adorned with garlands, nosegays, and ribbons,
and afterwards burnt.3 The reason for burning the tree
will appear afterwards ; the custom itself is not uncommon
in modern Europe. In some parts of the Pyrenees a tall
and slender tree is cut down on May Day and kept till
Midsummer Eve. It is then rolled to the top of a hill, set
1 Pausanias, ix. 3 ; Plutarch, quoted by Eusebius, Praepar. Evang. iii. 1 sq.
2 Above, p. 201. 3 Above, p. 203.
I THE DAEDALA 227
up, and burned.1 In Angouleme on St. Peter's Day, the
twenty-ninth of June, a tall leafy poplar is set up in the
market-place and burned." In Cornwall " there was formerly
a great bonfire on Midsummer Eve ; a large summer pole
was fixed in the centre, round which the fuel was heaped
up. It had a large bush on the top of it." 3 In Dublin
on May-morning boys used to go out and cut a May-bush,
bring it back to town, and then burn it.4
Probably the Boeotian festival belonged to the same class
of rites. It represented the marriage of the powers of vege-
tation— the union of the oak-god with the oak-goddess — -
in spring or midsummer, just as the same event is repre-
sented in modern Europe by a King and Queen or a
Lord and Lady of the May. In the Boeotian, as in the
Russian, ceremony the tree dressed as a woman stands for
the English May-pole and May-queen in one. All such
ceremonies, it must be remembered, are not, or at least were
not originally, mere spectacular or dramatic exhibitions.
They are magical charms designed to produce the effect
which they dramatically set forth. If the revival of vegeta-
tion in spring is mimicked by the awakening of a sleeper, the
mimicry is intended actually to quicken the growth of leaves
and blossoms ; if the marriage of the powers of vegetation is
simulated by a King and Queen of May, the idea is that the
powers thus personated will really be rendered more pro-
ductive by the ceremony. In short, all these spring and
[midsummer festivals fall under the head of sympathetic or
limitative magic. The thing which people wish to bring
about they represent dramatically, and the very representation
is believed to effect, or at least to contribute to, the produc-
tion of the desired result. In the case of the Daedala the
story of Hera's quarrel with Zeus and her sullen retirement
may perhaps without straining be interpreted as a mythical
expression for a bad season and the failure of the crops. The
same disastrous effects were attributed to the anger and
seclusion of Demeter after the loss of her daughter Proser-
pine.5 Now the institution of a festival is often explained
1 Mannhardt, B.K. p. 177. 4 Hone, Every Day Eook, ii. 595
2 Mannhardt, B.K. p. 177 sq. sq. ; B.K. p. 178.
3 Brand, Popular Antiquities, i. 318;
B.K. p. 178. 5 Pausanias, viii. 42.
MARRIAGE OF ZEUS
CHAP.
by a mythical story, which relates how upon a particular
occasion those very calamities occurred which it is the real
object of the festival to avert ; so that if we know the myth
told to account for the historical origin of the festival, we can
often infer from it the real intention with which the festival
was celebrated. If, therefore, the origin of the Daedala was
explained by a story of a failure 61* crops and consequent
famine, we may infer that the real object of the festival was
to prevent the occurrence of such disasters ; and, if I am right,
in my interpretation of the festival, the object was supposed
to be effected by dramatically enacting the marriage of the
divinities most concerned with the production of trees and
plants.1 The marriage of Zeus and Hera was dramatically
represented at annual festivals in various parts of Greece,"
and it is at least a fair conjecture that the nature and inten-
tion of these ceremonies were such as I have assigned to the
Plataean festival of the Daedala ; in other words, that Zeus
and Hera at these festivals were the Greek equivalents of the
Lord and Lady of the May. Homer's glowing picture of
Zeus and Hera couched on fresh hyacinths and crocuses,3,
like Milton's description of the dalliance of Zephyr with
Aurora, " as he met her once a-Maying," was perhaps painted
from the life.
1 Once upon a time the Wotjaks of
Russia, being distressed by a series of
bad harvests, ascribed the calamity to
the wrath of one of their gods, Keremet,
at being unmarried. So they went in
procession to the sacred grove, riding
on gaily-decked waggons, as they do
when they are fetching home a bride.
At the sacred grove they feasted all
night, and next morning they cut in the
grove a square piece of turf which they
took home with them. "What they
meant by this marriage ceremony," says
the writer who reports it, " it is not
easy to imagine. Perhaps, as Bechterew
thinks, they meant to marry Keremet
to the kindly and fruitful mukyli in,
the earth-wife, in order that she might
influence him for good."— Max Buch,
Die Wotjaken, eine ethnologische Stndie
(Stuttgart, 1882), p. 137.
2 At Cnossus in Crete, Diodorus, v.
72 ; at Samos, Lactantius, Instit. i. 17 ;
at Athens, Photius, Lexicon, s.v. Upbv
yd.p.ov ; Eiymolog. Magn. s.v. iepofj-vrj-
/xoues, p. 468. 52. A fragment of Phere-
cydes relating to the marriage of Zeus,
and Hera came to light a few years ago.
See Grenfell and Hunt, New Classical
and other Greek and Latin Papyri
(Oxford, 1897), P- 23 ; H. Weil in
Revue des Etndes Grecques, x. (1897),
pp. 1-9.
3 Iliad, xiv. 347 sqq. Hera was
worshipped under the title of Flowery
at Argos (Pausanias, ii. 22. 1 ; cp.
Etymol. Magn. s.v. "Avdeia, p. 10S,
line 48), and women called Flower-
bearers served in her sanctuary (Pollux,
iv. 78). A great festival of gathering
flowers was'' celebrated by Peloponne-
sian women in spring (Hesychius, s.v.
ripoaavdeia, cp. Photius, Lexicon, s.v.
'Hpoavdca). The first of May is still a
festival of flowers in Peloponnese. See
Folk-lore, i. (1890), p. 518 sqq.
MARRIAGE OF DIONYSUS
229
Still more confidently may the same character be vindi-
cated for the annual marriage at Athens of the Queen to
Dionysus in the Flowery Month {Anthestcrioii) of spring.1
For Dionysus, as we shall see later on, was essentially a god
of vegetation, and the Queen at Athens was a purely religious
or priestly functionary.2 'therefore at their annual marriage
in spring he can hardly have been anything but a King, and
she a Queen, of May. The women who attended the Queen
at the marriage ceremony would correspond to the brides-
maids who wait on the May-queen or the Whitsun-bride.3
From a phrase of Aristotle we infer that the consummation of
the divine union was graphically enacted in the official resi-
dence of the King, which went by a name that appears to have
some reference to ploughing with oxen.4 Again, the story,
dear to poets and artists, of the forsaken and sleeping Ariadne
waked and wedded by Dionysus, resembles so closely the
little drama acted by French peasants of the Alps on May
Day0 that, considering the character of Dionysus as a god of
vegetation, we can hardly help regarding it as the description
of a spring ceremony corresponding to the French one. In
point of fact the marriage of Dionysus and Ariadne is
believed by Preller to have been acted every spring in Crete.b
His evidence, indeed, is inconclusive, but the view itself is prob-
able. If I am right in instituting the comparison, the chief
difference between the French and the Greek ceremonies must
have been that in the former the sleeper was the forsaken
bridegroom, in the latter the forsaken bride ; and the group
of stars in the sky, in which fancy saw Ariadne's wedding-
crown,' may have been only a translation to heaven of the
garland worn by the Greek girl who played the Queen of May.
1 Demosthenes, Neaer, § 73 sqq. p.
1369 sq. ; Aristotle, Constitution of
Athens, iii. 5 ; Hesychius, s.vv. Aiovvaov
yd/xos and yepapai ; Etymol. Magn. s.v.
yepalpai ; Pollux, viii. 108 ; Hermann,
Gottesdienstliehe Alterth inner, - § 3 2 . 15,
§ 58. 11 sqq.; Aug. Mommsen, Feste
der Stadt Athen im A Iter turn (Leipsic,
1898), pp. 391-394-
2 Above, p. 7.
3 Above, pp. 220, 221.
4 6 fiev /3a<n\et'S elx^ to vvv ko\ov-
fievov j3ovKo\elov, Tr\rj<riov rod wpvTaveioV
arjixeiov 5i ' 'in Kal vvv yap rrjs tov /3a<ri-
X^aij yvvaiKos 17 av/j.fj.ei^is ivravda yly-
verai rai Aiovvaq} Kal 6 yd.fj.ot, Aristotle,
loc. cit. It does not appear whether
the part of the divine husband in the
ceremony was played by an image or
a man.
5 Above, p. 221 sq.
0 L. Preller, Ansgewahlte Aufsiitze,
pp. 293-296; compare id., Griechisehe
Mythologies ed. C. Robert, i. 681 sqq.
7 Hyginus, Astronomica, i. 5.
23°
THE PRIEST OF ARICIA
CHAP.
On the whole, alike from the analogy of modern folk-
custom and from the facts of ancient ritual and mythology,
we are justified in concluding that the archaic forms of tree-
worship disclosed by the spring and midsummer festivals of
our peasants were practised by the Greeks and Romans in
prehistoric times. Do then these forms of tree-worship help
to explain the priesthood of Aricia, the subject of our inquiry?
I believe they do. In the first place the attributes of Diana,
the goddess of the Arician grove, are those of a tree-spirit or
sylvan deity. Her sanctuaries were in groves, indeed every
grove was her sanctuary,1 and she is often associated with
the wood-god Silvanus in inscriptions.2 Like a tree-spirit,
she helped women in travail, and in this respect her reputa-
tion appears to have stood high at the Arician grove, if we
may judge from the votive offerings found on the spot.3
Again, she was the patroness of wild animals ;4 just as in
Finland the wood-god Tapio was believed to care for the
wild creatures that roamed the wood, they being considered
his cattle.5 Similarly, the forest-god of the Lapps ruled over
all forest animals, which were regarded as his herds, and good
or bad luck in hunting depended on his will.6 So, too, the
Samagitians deemed the birds and beasts of the woods sacred,
doubtless because they were under the protection of the god
of the wood.7 Again, there are indications that domestic
cattle were protected by Diana,8 as they certainly were
supposed to be by Silvanus.9 But we have seen that special
influence over cattle is ascribed to wood-spirits ; in Finland
the herds enjoyed the protection of the wood-gods both while
they were in their stalls and while they strayed in the forest.10
Lastly, in the sacred spring which bubbled, and the perpetual
fire which seems to have burned in the Arician grove,11 we
Prolo-historic Finns (London, 1898),
i. 161.
7 Mathias Michov, " De Sarmatia
Asiana atque Europea," in Noviis Orbis
regionum ac insularum veteribus incog-
nitarum, p. 457-
8 Livy, i. 45 ; Plutarch, Quaestiones
Romanac, 4.
9 Virgil, Aen. viii. 600 sq., with
Servius's note.
10 Castren, op. cit. p. 97 sq.
11 Above, p. 5 sq.
1 Servius on Virgil, Gcorg. iii. 332 :
"nam, tit diximus, et omnis quercusjovi
est consecrata, et omnis htctis Dianae."
2 Roscher's Lexikon d. Griech. u.
Rom. Mythologie, i. 1005.
3 See above, p. 5. For Diana in
this character, see Roscher, op. cit. i.
1007.
4 Roscher, op. cit. i. 1006 sq.
5 Castren, Finnische Mythologie (St.
Petersburg, 1853), p. 97.
6 J. Abercromby, The Pre- and
i AN INCARNATION OF THE TREE-SPIRIT 231
may perhaps detect traces of other attributes of forest gods,
the power, namely, to make the rain to fall and the sun to
shine.1 This last attribute perhaps explains why Virbius,
the companion deity of Diana at Nemi, was by some believed
to be the sun.2
Thus the cult of the Arician grove was essentially that
of a tree-spirit or sylvan deity. But our examination of
European folk-custom demonstrated that a tree-spirit is
frequently represented by a living person, who is regarded as
an embodiment of the tree-spirit and possessed of its fertilising
Dowers ; and our previous survey of primitive belief proved
that this conception of a god incarnate in a living man is
common among rude races. Further we have seen that the
living person who is believed to embody in himself the tree-
spirit is often called a king, in which respect, again, he strictly
represents the tree-spirit. For the sacred cedar of the Gilgit
tribes is called, as we have seen, " the Dreadful King " ; 3 and
the chief forest god of the Finns, by name Tapio, represented
as an old man with a brown beard, a high hat of fir-cones
and a coat of tree-moss, was styled the Wood King, Lord of
the Woodland, Golden King of the Wood.4 May not then
the King of the Wood in the Arician grove have been, like
the King of May, the Leaf King, the Grass King, and the
like, an incarnation of the tree-spirit or spirit of vegetation ?
His title, his sacred office, and his residence in the grove all
point to this conclusion, which is confirmed by his relation
to the Golden Bough. For since the King of the Wood
could only be assailed by him who had plucked the Golden
Bough, his life was safe from assault so long as the bough or
the tree on which it grew remained uninjured. In a sense,
therefore, his life was bound up with that of the tree ; and
thus to some extent he stood to the tree in the same relation
in which the incorporate or immanent tree-spirit stands to it.
The representation of the tree-spirit both by the King of the
Wood and by the Golden Bough (for it will hardly be
disputed that the Golden Bough was looked upon as a very
special manifestation of the divine life of the grove) need not
surprise us, since we have found that the tree-spirit is not
1 Above, p. iSS sq. 4 Castren, Finiiische Mythologies pp.
2 Above, p. 6. 3 Above, p. 193. 92, 95.
232 THE KING OF THE WOOD chap, i
unfrequently thus represented in double, first by a tree or a
bough, and second by a living person.
On the whole then, if we consider his double character as
king and priest, his relation to the Golden Bough, and the
strictly woodland character of the divinity of the grove, we
may provisionally assume that the King of the Wood, like
the May King and his fellows of Northern Europe, was
deemed a living incarnation of the tree-spirit. As such he
would be credited with those miraculous powers of sending
rain and sunshine, making the crops to grow, women to bring
forth, and flocks and herds to multiply, which are popularly
ascribed to the tree-spirit itself. The reputed possessor of
powers so exalted must have been a very important person-
age, and in point of fact his influence appears to have extended
far and wide. For in the days when the champaign country
around was still parcelled out among the petty tribes who
composed the Latin League, the sacred grove on the Alban
Mountain is known to have been an object of their common
reverence and care.1 And just as the kings of Cambodia
used to send offerings to the mystic Kings of Fire and Water
far in the dim depths of the tropical forest, so, we may well
believe, from all sides of the broad Latian plain the eyes and
steps of Italian pilgrims turned to the quarter where, standing
sharply out against the faint blue line of the Apennines or the
deeper blue of the distant sea, the Alban Mountain rose
before them, the home of the mysterious priest of Nemi, the
King of the Wood.
1 Cato, Frag. 5S {Historic. Roman. haines von Aricia," Fhckeiseifs Jahr-
Fragm. ed. Peter, p. 52). Compare J- biicher, xxix. (1883), 169-175.
Beloch, " Die Weihinschrift des Diana-
CHAPTER II
THE PERILS OF THE SOUL
" O liebe fliichtige Seele
vv
Heine.
Dir ist so bang und weh ! "
§ I . Royal and Priestly Taboos
In the preceding chapter we saw that in early society the
king or priest is often thought to be endowed with super-
natural powers or to be an incarnation of a deity ; in
consequence of which the course of nature is supposed to be
more or less under his control, and he is held responsible for
bad weather, failure of the crops, and similar calamities.
Thus far it appears to be assumed that the king's power
over nature, like that over his subjects and slaves, is
exerted through definite acts of will ; and therefore if
drought, famine, pestilence, or storms arise, the people
attribute the misfortune to the negligence or guilt of their
king, and punish him accordingly with stripes and bonds,
or, if he remains obdurate, with deposition and death.
Sometimes, however, the course of nature, while regarded as
dependent on the king, is supposed to be partly independent
of his will. His person is considered, if we may express it
so, as the dynamical centre of the universe, from which lines
of force radiate to all quarters of the heaven ; so that any
motion of his — the turning of his head, the lifting of his
hand — instantaneously affects and may seriously disturb
some part of nature. He is the point of support on which
hangs the balance of the world ; and the slightest irregularity
on his part may overthrow the delicate equipose. The
234
THE MIKADO chap.
greatest care must, therefore, be taken both by and of him ;
and his whole life, down to its minutest details, must be so
regulated that no act of his, voluntary or involuntary, may
disarrange or upset the established order of nature. Of this
class of monarchs the Mikado or Dairi, the spiritual emperor
of Japan, is or rather used to be a typical example. He is
an incarnation of the sun goddess, the deity who rules the
universe, gods and men included ; once a year all the gods
wait upon him and spend a month at his court. During
that month, the name of which means " without gods," no one
frequents the temples, for they are believed. to be deserted.1
The following description of the Mikado's mode of life
was written about two hundred years ago : 2 —
" Even to this day the princes descended of this family,
more particularly those who sit on the throne, are looked
upon as persons most holy in themselves, and as Popes by
birth. And, in order to preserve these advantageous notions
in the minds of their subjects, they are obliged to take an
uncommon care of their sacred persons, and to do such
things, which, examined according to the customs of other
nations, would be thought ridiculous and impertinent. It
will not be improper to give a few instances of it. He
thinks that it would be very prejudicial to his dignity and
holiness to touch the ground with his feet ; for this reason,
when he intends to go anywhere, he must be carried thither
on men's shoulders. Much less will they suffer that he
should expose his sacred person to the open air, and the
sun is not thought worthy to shine on his head. There is
such a holiness ascribed to all the parts of his body that he
dares to cut off neither his hair, nor his beard, nor his nails.
However, lest he should grow too dirty, they may clean him
in the night when he is asleep ; because, they say, that
which is taken from his body at that time hath been stolen
from him, and that such a theft doth not prejudice his
holiness or dignity. In ancient times, he was obliged to sit
on the throne for some hours every morning, with the
1 Manners and Customs of the Japan- (London, 1841), p. 141 sag.
ese in the Nineteenth Century: from - Kaempfer, "History of Japan,"
recent Dutch Visitors to Japan, and the in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels,
German of Dr. Ph. Fr. von Siebold vii. 7 1 6 sq.
ii THE MIKADO 235
imperial crown on his head, but to sit altogether like a
statue, without stirring either hands or feet, head or eyes,
nor indeed any part of his body, because, by this means, it
was thought that he could preserve peace and tranquillity
in his empire ; for if, unfortunately, he turned himself on
one side or the other, or if he looked a good while towards
any part of his dominions, it was apprehended that war,
famine, fire, or some great misfortune was near at hand to
desolate the country. But it having been afterwards dis-
covered that the imperial crown was the palladium which by
its immobility 1 could preserve peace in the empire, it was
thought expedient to deliver his imperial person, consecrated
only to idleness and pleasures, from this burthensome duty,
and therefore the crown is at present placed on the throne
for some hours every morning. His victuals must be dressed
every time in new pots, and served at table in new dishes :
both are very clean and neat, but made only of common
clay; that without any considerable expense they may be
laid aside, or broken, after they have served once. They
are generally broke, for fear they should come into the hands
of laymen, for they believe religiously that if any layman
should presume to eat his food out of these sacred dishes, it
would swell and inflame his mouth and throat. The like ill
effect is dreaded from the Dairi's sacred habits ; for they
believe that if a layman should wear them, without the
Emperor's express leave or command, they would occasion
swellings and pains in all parts of his body." To the same
effect an earlier account of the Mikado says: "It was considered
as a shameful degradation for him even to touch the ground
with his foot. The sun and moon were not even permitted
to shine upon his head. None of the superfluities of the
body were ever taken from him, neither his hair, his beard,
nor his nails were cut. Whatever he eat was dressed in
new vessels." 2
1 In Pinkerton's reprint this word ap- - Caron, "Account of Japan," in
pears as "mobility." I have made the Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, vii.
correction from a comparison with the 613. Compare Varenius, Descriptio
original (Kaempfer, History of Japan, regni Japoniae, p. 11 : " Nunquam
translated from the original Dutch attingebant {quemadmodum et hodie id
manuscript by J. G. Scheuchzer, Lon- observat) pedes ipsius terrain : radiis
don, 172S, vol. i. p. 150). Solis caput nunquam illustrabatur :
236 THE CHITOME
CHAP.
Similar priestly or rather divine kings are found, at a
lower level of barbarism, on the west coast of Africa. At
Shark Point near Cape Padron, in Lower Guinea, lives the
priestly king Kukulu, alone in a wood. He may not touch a
woman nor leave his house ; indeed he may not even quit
his chair, in which he is obliged to sleep sitting, for if he lay
down no wind would arise and navigation would be stopped.
He regulates storms, and in general maintains a wholesome
and equable state of the atmosphere.1 In the West African
kingdom of Congo there was a supreme pontiff called
Chitome or Chitombe, whom the negroes regarded as a god
on earth and all-powerful in heaven. Hence before they
would taste the new crops they offered him the first-fruits,
fearing that manifold misfortunes would befall them if they
broke this rule. When he left his residence to visit other
places within his jurisdiction, all married people had to
observe strict continence the whole time he was out ; for it
was supposed that any act of incontinence would prove fatal
to him. And if he were to die a natural death, they thought
that the world would perish, and the earth, which he alone
sustained by his power and merit, would immediately be
annihilated.2 Amongst the semi-barbarous nations of the
New World, at the date of the Spanish conquest, there were
found hierarchies or theocracies like those of Japan. Some
of these we have already noticed.3 But the high pontiff of
the Zapotecs in Southern Mexico appears to have presented
a still closer parallel to the Mikado. A powerful rival to
the king himself, this spiritual lord governed Yopaa, one of
the chief cities of the kingdom, with absolute dominion. It
is impossible, we are told, to overrate the reverence in which
he was held. He was looked on as a god whom the earth
was not worthy to hold nor the sun to shine upon. He
profaned his sanctity if he even touched the ground with his
foot. The officers who bore his palanquin on their shoulders
were members of the highest families ; he hardly deigned to
look on anything around him ; and all who met him fell
in apertum aerem non procedebat '," etc. Hon an der Loango-Kiistc, i. 287 sq.,
My copy of this last work lacks the title- cp. p. 3535^.
page, but the dedication is dated - Labat, Relation historique de
Amsterdam, 1649. PEthiopie occidental, i. 254 sqq.
1 A. Bastian, Die dentsche Expedi- 3 Above, pp. 153 jy/., 160.
ii ZAP 0 TEC PONTIFF 237
with their faces to the earth, fearing that death would over-
take them if they saw even his shadow. A rule of continence
was regularly imposed on the Zapotec priests, especially
upon the high pontiff ; but " on certain days in each year,
which were generally celebrated with feasts and dances, it
was customary for the high priest to become drunk. While
in this state, seeming to belong neither to heaven nor to
earth, one of the most beautiful of the virgins consecrated to
the service of the gods was brought to him." If the child
she bore him was a son, he was brought up as a prince of
the blood, and the eldest son succeeded his father on the
pontifical throne.1 The supernatural powers attributed to
this pontiff are not specified, but probably they resembled
those of the Mikado and Chitome.
Wherever, as in Japan and West Africa, it is supposed
that the order of nature, and even the existence of the world,
is bound up with the life of the king or priest, it is clear
that he must be regarded by his subjects as a source both of
infinite blessing and of infinite danger. On the one hand,
the people have to thank him for the rain and sunshine
which foster the fruits of the earth, for the wind which
brings ships to their coasts, and even for the existence of the
earth beneath their feet. But what he gives he can refuse ;
and so close is the dependence of nature on his person, so
delicate the balance of the system of forces whereof he is the
centre, that the least irregularity on his part may set up a
tremor which shall shake the earth to its foundations. And
if nature may be disturbed by the slightest involuntary act
of the king, it is easy to conceive the convulsion which his
death might provoke. The death of the Chitome, as we
have seen, was thought to entail the destruction of the world.
Clearly, therefore, out of a regard for their own safety, which
might be imperilled by any rash act of the king, and still
more by his death, the people will exact of their king or
priest a strict conformity to those rules, the observance of
which is necessary for his own preservation, and consequently
for the preservation of his people and the world. The idea
1 Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire des Native Races of the Pacific States, ii.
nations civilisees du Mexiquc* et de 142 sq.
r Atniriqiie-centrale, iii. 29 so. ; Bancroft,
23S ROYAL TABOOS chap.
that early kingdoms are despotisms in which the people
exist only for the sovereign, is wholly inapplicable to the
monarchies we are considering. On the contrary, the
sovereign in them exists only for his subjects ; his life is
only valuable so long as he discharges the duties of his
position by ordering the course of nature for his people's
benefit. So soon as he fails to do so, the care, the devotion,
the religious homage which they had hitherto lavished on
him cease and are changed into hatred and contempt; he is
dismissed ignominiously, and may be thankful if he escapes
with his life. Worshipped as a god by them one day, he
is killed by them as a criminal the next. But in this
changed behaviour of the people there is nothing capricious
or inconsistent. On the contrary, their conduct is entirely
of a piece. If their king is their god, he is or should be
also their preserver ; and if he will not preserve them, he
must make room for another who will. So long, however,
as he answers their expectations, there is no limit to the
care which they take of him, and which they compel him to
take of himself. A king of this sort lives hedged in by a
ceremonious etiquette, a network of prohibitions and obser-
vances, of which the intention is not to contribute to his
dignity, much less to his comfort, but to restrain him from
conduct which, by disturbing the harmony of nature, might
involve himself, his people, and the universe in one common
catastrophe. Far from adding to his comfort, these obser-
vances, by trammelling his every act, annihilate his freedom
and often render the very life, which it is their object to
preserve, a burden and sorrow to him.
Of the supernaturally endowed kings of Loango it is
said that the more powerful a king is, the more taboos is he
bound to observe ; they regulate all his actions, his walking
and his standing, his eating and drinking, his sleeping and
waking.1 To these restraints the heir to the throne is
subject from infancy ; but as he advances in life the number
of abstinences and ceremonies which he must observe
increases, " until at the moment that he ascends the throne
he is lost in the ocean of rites and taboos." 2 In the crater
1 Bastian, Die deutsche Expedition 2 Dapper, Description de F Afrique
an der Loango-Kiiste, i. 355. (Amsterdam, 16S6), p. 336.
II
KING OF FERNANDO PO
239
of an extinct volcano, enclosed on all sides by grassy slopes,
lie the scattered huts and yam-fields of Riabba, the capital
of the native king of Fernando Po. This mysterious being
lives in the lowest depths of the crater, surrounded by a
harem of forty women, and covered, it is saidr with old silver
coins. Naked savage as he is, he yet exercises far more
influence in the island than the Spanish governor at Santa
Isabel. In him the conservative spirit of the Boobies or
aboriginal inhabitants of the island are, as it were, incor-
porate. He has never seen a white man and, according to
the firm conviction of all the Boobies, the sight of a pale
face would cause his instant death. He cannot bear to look
upon the sea ; indeed it is said that he may never see it
even in the distance, and that therefore he wears away his
life with shackles on his legs in the dim twilight of his hut.
Certain it is that he has never set foot on the beach. With
the exception of his musket and knife, he uses nothing that
comes from the whites ; European cloth never touches his
person, and he scorns tobacco, rum, and even salt.1 The
ancient kings of Ireland, as well as the kings of the four
provinces of Leinster, Munster, Connaught, and Ulster, were
subject to certain quaint prohibitions or taboos, on the due
1 O. Baumann, Eine Afrikanische
Tropen-Insel, Fernando Poo und die
Bube (Wien und Olmlitz, 1888), p. 103
sq. The writer thinks there may be
some exaggeration in the report that the
king may not look upon the sea even
from afar. But the report is confirmed
by analogous taboos elsewhere. The
king of Great Ardra in Guinea might
not see the sea (Bosnian's "Guinea"
in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, xvi.
500) ; and the king of Loango is subject
to the same taboo (Bastian, Die deutsche
Expedition an der Loango - Kiiste,
i. 263). The sea is the fetish of the
Eyeos, to the north-west of Dahomey,
and they and their king are threatened
with death by their priests if ever they
dared to look upon it (A. Dalzell,
History of Dahomey (London, 1793),
p. 1 5 ; Tn. Winterbottom, An Account
of the ATative Africans in the Neighbour-
hood of Sierra Leone, p. 229 sq.). The
Egyptian priests loathed the sea and
called it the foam of Typhon ; they
were forbidden to set salt on their table,
and they would not speak to pilots
because they got their living by the
sea ; hence too they would not eat fish,
and the hieroglyphic symbol for hatred
was a fish (Plutarch, Ins et Osiris, 32).
When the Indians of the Peruvian
Andes were sent to work in the hot
valleys of the coast, the vast ocean
which they saw before them as they
descended the Cordillera was dreaded
by them as a cause of disease ; hence
they prayed to it that they might not
fall ill (E. J. Payne, History of the New
World called America, i. 451). Simi-
larly the inland people of Lampong,
in Sumatra, " are said to pay a kind
of adoration to the sea, and to make it
an offering of cakes and sweetmeats
on their beholding it for the first
time, deprecating its power of doing
them mischief" (Marsden, History of
Sumatra, p. 301).
240 TABOOS ON IRISH KINGS chap.
observance of which the prosperity of the people and the
country, as well as their own, was supposed to depend.
Thus, for example, the sun might not rise on the king of
Ireland in his bed at Tara, the old capital of Erin ; he was
forbidden to alight on Wednesday at Magh Breagh, to
traverse Magh Cuillinn after sunset, to incite his horse at
Fan-Chomair, to go in a ship upon the water the Monday
after Bealltaine (May Day), and to leave the track of his
army upon Ath Maighne the Tuesday after All-Hallows.
The king of Leinster might not go round Tuath Laighean
left-hand-wise on Wednesday, nor sleep between the Dothair
(Dodder) and the Duibhlinn l with his head inclining to one
side, nor encamp for nine days on the plains of Cualann, nor
travel the road of Duibhlinn on Monday, nor ride a dirty,
black-heeled horse across Magh Maistean. The king of
Munster was prohibited from enjoying the feast of Loch
Lein from one Monday to another ; from banqueting by
night in the beginning of harvest before Geim at Leitreacha;
from encamping for nine days upon the Siuir ; and from
holding a border meeting at Gabhran. The king of Con-
naught might not conclude a treaty respecting his ancient
palace of Cruachan2 after making peace on All-Hallows
Day, nor go in a speckled garment on a grey speckled steed
to the heath of Dal Chais, nor repair to an assembly of
women at Seaghais, nor sit in autumn on the sepulchral
mounds of the wife of Maine, nor contend in running with
the rider of a grey one-eyed horse at Ath Gallta between
two posts. The king of Ulster was forbidden to attend the
horse fair at Rath Line among the youths of Dal Araidhe,
to listen to the fluttering of the flocks of birds of Linn
Saileach after sunset, to celebrate the feast of the bull of
Daire-mic-Daire, to go into Magh Cobha in the month of
March, and to drink of the water of Bo Neimhidh between
two darknesses. If the kings of Ireland strictly observed
these and many other customs, which were enjoined by
immemorial usage, it was believed that they would never
meet with mischance or misfortune, and would live for ninety
1 The Duibhlinn is the part of the of some earthen forts, is now known as
Liffey on which Dublin now stands. Rathcroghan, near Belanagare in the
2 The site, marked by the remains county of Roscommon.
JI
LIFE OF EGYPTIAN KINGS 241
years without experiencing the decay of old age ; that no
epidemic or mortality would occur during their reigns ; and
that the seasons would be favourable and the earth yield its
fruit in abundance ; whereas, if they set the ancient usages
at naught, the country would be visited with plague, famine,
and bad weather.1
The kings of Egypt, as we have seen,2 were worshipped
as gods, and the routine of their daily life was regulated in
every detail by precise and unvarying rules. " The life of
the kings of Egypt," says Diodorus, " was not like that of
other monarchs who are irresponsible and may do just what
they choose ; on the contrary, everything was fixed for them
by law, not only their official duties, but even the details of
their daily life. . . . The hours both of day and night were
arranged at which the king had to do, not what he pleased,
but what was prescribed for him. . . . For not only were
the times appointed at which he should transact public
business or sit in judgment ; but the very hours for his
walking and bathing and sleeping with his wife, and, in
short, performing every act of life were all settled. Custom
enjoined a simple diet ; the only flesh he might eat was veal
and goose, and he might only drink a prescribed quantity of
wine." Of the taboos imposed on priests we may see a
striking example in the rules of life observed by the Flamen
Dialis at Rome, who has been interpreted as a living image of
Zeus 4 or a human embodiment of the sky-spirit.5 Since the
worship of Virbius at Nemi was conducted, as we have seen,6
by a Flamen, who may possibly have been the King of the
Wood himself, and whose mode of life may have resembled
that of the Roman Flamen, these rules have a special interest
for us. They were such as the following : The Flamen
Dialis might not ride or even touch a horse, nor see an army
1 The Book of Rights, edited with have to thank my friend Professor T.
translation and notes by John O'Dono- Rhys for kindly calling my attention to
van (Dublin, 1847), pp. 3-8. This this interesting record of a long-vanished
work, comprising a list both of the past in Ireland,
prohibitions (urgharta or geasa) and - I'. 161 sq.
the prerogatives {baadha) of the Irish 3 Diodorus Siculus, i. 70.
kings, is preserved in a number of * L. Preller, Komische Mythologie?
manuscripts, of which the two oldest i. 201.
date from 1390 and about 1418 re- ■' F. B. Jevons, Plutarch's Romane
spectively. The list is repeated twice, Questions, p. Ixxiii.
first in prose and then in verse. I <; P. 6.
VOL. I R
242 THE FLAM EN DIALIS chap.
under arms,1 nor wear a ring which was not broken, nor
have a knot on any part of his garments ; no fire except a
sacred fire might be taken out of his house ; he might not
touch wheaten flour or leavened bread ; he might not
touch or even name a goat, a dog,2 raw meat, beans, and
ivy ; he might not walk under a vine ; the feet of his bed
had to be daubed with mud ; his hair could be cut only by
a free man and with a bronze knife, and his hair and
nails when cut had to be buried under a lucky tree ; he
might not touch a dead body nor enter a place where one
was burned ; 3 he might not see work being done on holy
days ; he might not be uncovered in the open air ; if a man
in bonds were taken into his house, the captive had to be
unbound and the cords had to be drawn up through a hole
in the roof and so let down into the street. His wife, the
Flaminica, had to observe nearly the same rules, and others
of her own besides. She might not ascend more than three
steps of the kind of staircase called Greek ; at a certain
festival she might not comb her hair ; the leather of her
shoes might not be made from a beast that had died a
natural death, but only from one that had been slain or
sacrificed ; if she heard thunder she was tabooed till she had
offered an expiatory sacrifice.4
1 Among the Gallas the king, who happened to be high and isolated, but
also acts as priest by performing sacri- another of the four Kaneash had been
fices, is the only man who is not compelled to erect a curious-looking
allowed to fight with weapons ; he square pen made of poles in front of
may not even ward off a blow (Paulit- his house, his own roof being a common
schke, Ethnographie Nor dost- Afrikas : thoroughfare" (Sir George Scott
die geistige Cultur der Danakil, Galla Robertson, The Kafirs of the Hindu
und Somdl, p. 136). Kush (London, 1898), p. 466).
2 Among the Kafirs of the Hindoo 3 Similarly among the Kafirs of the
Koosh men who are preparing to be Hindoo Koosh the high priest " may
headmen are considered ceremonially not traverse certain paths which go
pure, and wear a semi-sacred uniform near the receptacles for the dead, nor
which must not be defiled by coming may he visit the cemeteries. He may
into contact with dogs. "The Kaneash not go into the actual room where a
[persons in this state of ceremonial death has occurred until after an effigy
parity] were nervously afraid of my has been erected for the deceased,
dogs, which had to be fastened up Slaves may cross v "hr^shold, but
whenever one of these august person- must not approach uie hearth"'-' (Sir
ages was seen to approach. The George Scott Robertson, 0p. cit- p-
dressing has to be performed with the 416).
greatest care, in a place which cannot 4 Aulus Gellius, x. 15 ; Plutarch,
be defiled with dogs. Utah and Qitaest. Rom. 109-112; Pliny, Nat.
another had convenient dressing-rooms Hist, xxviii. 146 ; Servius on Virgil,
on the top of their houses which Acn. i. 179, 448, iv. 518; Macro-
ii B URDENS OF RO YA L TV
243
The burdensome observances attached to the royal or
priestly office produced their natural effect. Either men
refused to accept the office, which hence tended to fall into
abeyance ; or accepting it, they sank under its weight into
spiritless creatures, cloistered recluses, from whose nerveless
fingers the reins of government slipped into the firmer grasp
of men who were often content to wield the reality of
sovereignty without its name. In some countries this rift
in the supreme power deepened into a total and permanent
separation of the spiritual and temporal powers, the old
royal house retaining their purely religious functions, while
the civil government passed into the hands of a younger and
more vigorous race.
To take examples. We saw 1 that in Cambodia it is
often necessary to force the kingships of Fire and Water
upon the reluctant successors, and that in Savage Island
the monarchy actually came to an end because at last no
one could be induced to accept the dangerous distinction.2
In some parts of West Africa, when the king dies, a family
council is secretly held to determine his successor. He on
whom the choice falls is suddenly seized, bound, and thrown
into the fetish-house, where he is kept in durance till he
consents to accept the crown. Sometimes the heir finds
means of evading the honour which it is sought to thrust
upon him ; a ferocious chief has been known to go about
constantly armed, resolute to resist by force any attempt to
set him on the throne.3 A reluctance to accept the
sovereignty in the Ethiopian kingdom of Gingiro was
simulated, if not really felt, as we learn from the old Jesuit
missionaries. " They wrap up the dead king's body in
costly garments, and killing a cow, put it into the hide ;
then all those who hope to succeed him, being his sons or
others of the royal blood, flying from the honour they covet,
abscond and hide themselves in the woods. This done, the
electors, who are all great sorcerers, agree among themselves
who shall h. king, and go out to seek him, when entering
bius, Saturn, i. 16. 8 sq. ; P'estus, p. 1 Pp. 164, 166. - P. 159.
161 A, ed. Miiller. For more details 3 Bastian, Die deutsche Expedition
see Marquardt, Romische Staatsver- an der Loango-Kiiste, i. 354 sq. ; ii.
waltiing, Hi.2 $26 sqq, 9, n.
244 THE TYCOONS chap.
the woods by means of their enchantments, they say, a large
bird called liber, as big as an eagle, comes down with mighty
cries over the place where he is hid, and they find him
encompass'd by lyons, tygers, snakes, and other creatures
gather'd about him by witchcraft. The elect, as fierce as
those beasts, rushes out upon those who seek him, wounding
and sometimes killing some of them, to prevent being seiz'd.
They take all in good part, defending themselves the best
they can, till they have seiz'd him. Thus they carry him
away by force, he still struggling and seeming to refuse
taking upon him the burthen of government, all which is
mere cheat and hypocrisy."1 The Mikados of Japan seem
early to have resorted to the expedient of transferring the
honours and burdens of supreme power to their infant
children ; and the rise of the Tycoons, long the temporal
sovereigns of the country, is traced to the abdication of a
certain Mikado in favour of his three-year-old son. The
sovereignty having been wrested by a usurper from the
infant prince, the cause of the Mikado was championed by
Yoritomo, a man of spirit and conduct, who overthrew the
usurper and restored to the Mikado the shadow, while he
retained for himself the substance of power. He bequeathed
to his descendants the dignity he had won, and thus became
the founder of the line of Tycoons. Down to the latter
half of the sixteenth century the Tycoons were active and
efficient rulers ; but the same fate overtook them which had
befallen the Mikados. Immeshed in the same inextricable
web of custom and law, they degenerated into mere puppets,
hardly stirring from their palaces and occupied in a perpetual
round of empty ceremonies, while the real business of
government was managed by the council of state.2 In
Tonquin the monarchy ran a similar course. Living like
his predecessors in effeminacy and sloth, the king was driven
from the throne by an ambitious adventurer named Mack,
who from a fisherman had risen to be Grand Mandarin.
But the king's brother Tring put down the usurper and
restored the king, retaining, however, for himself and his
1 The Travels of the Jesuits in (London, 1710), p. 197 sq.
Ethiopia, collected and historically 2 Manners and Customs of the Japan-
digested by F. Balthazar Tellez ese, pp. 199 sqq., 2,$$sqq.
n SACRED AND SECULAR RULERS 245
descendants the dignity of general of all the forces. Thence-
forward the kings or dovas, though invested with the title
and pomp of sovereignty, ceased to govern. While they lived
secluded in their palaces, all real political power was wielded
by the hereditary generals or cJwvas} The custom regularly
observed by the Tahitian kings of abdicating on the birth of
a son, who was immediately proclaimed sovereign and
received his father's homage, may perhaps have originated,
like the similar custom occasionally practised by the
Mikados, in a wish to shift to other shoulders the irksome
burden of royalty ; for in Tahiti as elsewhere the sovereign
was subjected to a system of vexatious restrictions.2 In
Mangaia, another Polynesian island, religious and civil
authority were lodged in separate hands, spiritual functions
being discharged by a line of hereditary kings, while the
temporal government was entrusted from time to time to a
victorious war-chief, whose investiture, however, had to be
completed by the king. To the latter were assigned the
best lands, and he received daily offerings of the choicest
food.3 The Mikado and Tycoon of Japan had their counter-
parts in the Roko Tui and Vunivalu of Fiji. The Roko Tui
was the Reverend or Sacred King. The Vunivalu was the
Root of War or War King. In one kingdom a certain
Thakambau, who was the War King, kept all power in his
own hands, but in a neighbouring kingdom the real ruler
was the Sacred King.4 At Athens the kings degenerated
into little more than sacred functionaries, and it is said that
the institution of the new office of Polemarch or War Lord
was rendered necessary by their growing effeminacy.5
American examples of the partition of authority between an
emperor and a pope have already been cited from the early
history of Mexico and Colombia.6
In some parts of Western Africa two kings reign side by
side, a fetish or religious king and a civil king, but the
1 Richard, " History of Tonquin," 4 Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a letter to
in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, ix. the author, dated August 26th, 1898.
744^^. •' Aristotle, Constitution of Athens,
2 W. Ellis, Polynesia!! Researches, iii. iii. 2. My friend Dr. Henry Jackson
ggs(/a., ed. 1836. kindly called my attention to this
3 Gill, Myths and Songs of the South passage.
Pacific, p. 293^/. « Pp. 154, 236 sq.
246 SACRED AND SECULAR RULERS chap.
fetish king is really supreme. He controls the weather and
so forth, and can put a stop to everything. When he lays
his red staff on the ground, no one may pass that way. This
division of power between a sacred and a secular ruler is
to be met with wherever the true negro culture has been
left unmolested, but where the negro form of society has
been disturbed, as in Dahomey and Ashantee, there is a
tendency to consolidate the two powers in a single king.
There was a fetish king in Calabar down to some twenty
years ago, but the office expired on account of its responsi-
bilities and expenses. One of the practical inconveniences
of the office, at least on the Grain Coast, is that the house
of the fetish king enjoys the right of sanctuary, and so tends
to become little better than a rookery of bad characters.
One Bodio or fetish king on the Grain Coast resigned
office because of the sort of people who quartered them-
selves on him, the cost of feeding them, and the squabbles
they had among themselves. He led a sort of cat-and-
dog life with them for three years. Then there came
a man with homicidal mania varied by epileptic fits ;
and soon afterwards the spiritual shepherd retired into
private life, but not before he had lost an ear and sustained
other bodily injury in a personal conflict with this very
black sheep.1
In some parts of the East Indian island of Timor we
meet with a partition of power like that which is repre-
sented by the civil king and the fetish king of Western
Africa. Some of the Timorese tribes recognise two rajahs,
the ordinary or civil rajah, who governs the people, and
the fetish or taboo rajah (radja pomali), who is charged
with the control of everything that concerns the earth
and its products. This latter ruler has the right of
declaring anything taboo ; his permission must be obtained
before new land may be brought under cultivation, and he
1 Miss Mary H. Kingsley in Journal civil, his opinion always carrying great
of the Anthropological Institute, xxix. weight." I had some conversation on
(1900), p. 62 sq. ; compare Le Comte this subject with Miss Kingsley (1st
C. N. de Cardi, ibid. p. 51 sq., who June 1897) and have embodied the
says that the fetish or ju-ju king of New results in the text. Miss Kingsley did
Calabar "ranked above the king in not know the rule of succession among
all purely native palavers, religious or the fetish kings.
ii THE NATURE OF THE SOUL 247
must perform certain necessary ceremonies when the work
is being carried out. If drought or blight threatens the
crops, his help is invoked to save them. Though he ranks
below the civil rajah, he exercises a momentous influence on
the course of events, for his secular colleague is bound to
consult him in all important matters. In some of the
neighbouring islands, such as Rotti and eastern Flores, a
spiritual ruler of the same sort is recognised under various
native names, which all mean " lord of the ground." 1
S 2. The Nature of the Soul
But if the object of the taboos observed by a divine king
or priest is to preserve his life, the question arises, How is
their observance supposed to effect this end ? To understand
this we must know the nature of the danger which threatens
the king's life, and which it is the intention of the taboos to
guard against. We must, therefore, ask : What does early
man understand by death ? To what causes does he attribute
it ? And how does he think it may be guarded against ?
As the savage commonly explains the processes of
inanimate nature by supposing that they are produced by
living beings working in or behind the phenomena, so he
explains the phenomena of life itself. If an animal lives and
moves, it can only be, he thinks, because there is a little
animal inside which moves it. If a man lives and moves, it
can only be because he has a little man or animal inside who
moves him. The animal inside the animal, the man inside
the man, is the soul. And as the activity of an animal or
man is explained by the presence of the soul, so the repose
of sleep or death is explained by its absence ; sleep or trance
being the temporary, death being the permanent absence of
the soul. Hence if death be the permanent absence of the
soul, the way to guard against it is either to prevent the soul
1 T. J. de Hollander, Handleiding H. Zondervan, "Timor en de Timor-
bij de Beafening der Land- en Volken- eezen," Tijdschrift van het Neder-
kunde van Nederlandsch Oost - Indie, landsch Aardrijkskundig Genootsckap,
ii. 606 sq. In other parts of Timor Tweede Serie, v. (1S88), Afdeeling,
the spiritual ruler is called Anaha pah a mehr uitgebreide artikelen, pp. 400-
or " conjuror of the land." Compare 402.
248 THE HUMAN SOUL chap.
from leaving the body, or, if it does depart, to ensure that it
shall return. The precautions adopted by savages to secure
one or other of these ends take the form of prohibitions or
taboos, which are nothing but rules intended to ensure
either the continued presence or the return of the soul. In
short, they are life-preservers or life-guards. These general
statements will now be illustrated by examples.
Addressing some Australian blacks, a European mission-
ary said, " I am not one, as you think, but two." Upon this
they laughed. " You may laugh as much as you like,"
continued the missionary, " I tell you that I am two in one ;
this great body that you see is one ; within that there is
another little one which is not visible. The great body dies,
and is buried, but the little body flies away when the great
one dies." To this some of the blacks replied, " Yes, yes.
We also are two, we also have a little body within the breast."
On being asked where the little body went after death, some
said it went behind the bush, others said it went into the sea,
and some said they did not know.1 The Hurons thought
that the soul had a head and body, arms and legs; in short,
that it was a complete little model of the man himself." The
Esquimaux believe that " the soul exhibits the same shape
as the body it belongs to, but is of a more subtle and ethereal
nature." 3 According to the Nootkas of British Columbia
the soul has the shape of a tiny man ; its seat is the crown
of the head. So long as it stands erect, its owner is hale and
well ; but when from any cause it loses its upright position,
he loses his senses.4 Among the Indian tribes of the Lower
Fraser River, man is held to have four souls, of which the
principal one has the form of a mannikin, while the other
three are shadows of it.5 The Malays conceive the human
soul (semangat) as a little man, mostly invisible and of the
bigness of a thumb, who corresponds exactly in shape, pro-
1 R. Salvado, Mimoires historiqnes 4 Fr. Boas, in Sixth Report on the
sur FAustralie (Paris, 1S54), p. 162; North-Western Tribes of Canada, p.
fournal of the Anthropological Institute, 44 (separate reprint from the. Report
vii. (1878), p. 282. of the British Association for 1890).
2 Relations des Jesnites, 1634, p. 17;
id., 1636, p. 104 ; id., 1639, p. 43 5 Fr. Boas, in Ninth Report on. the
(Canadian reprint). Arorlh- Western Tribes of Canada, p.
3 H. Rink, Tales and Traditions of 461 (Report of the British Association
the Eskimo, p. 36. for 1894).
ii CONCEIVED AS A MAN NIK IN 249
portion, and even in complexion to the man in whose body
he resides. This mannikin is of a thin unsubstantial nature,
though not so impalpable but that it may cause displacement
on entering a physical object, and it can flit quickly from place
to place ; it is temporarily absent from the body in sleep,
trance, and disease, and permanently absent after death.1
The ancient Egyptians believed that every man has a soul
(ka) which is his exact counterpart or double, with the same
features, the same gait, even the same dress as the man him-
self. Many of the monuments dating from the eighteenth
century onwards represent various kings appearing before
divinities, while behind the king stands his soul or double,
portrayed as a little man with the king's features. Some of
the reliefs in the temple at Luxor illustrate the birth of King
Amenophis III. While the queen-mother is being tended
by two goddesses acting as midwives, two other goddesses
are bringing away two figures of new-born children, only one
of which is supposed to be a child of flesh and blood : the
inscriptions engraved above their heads show that, while the
first is Amenophis, the second is his soul or double. And
as with kings and queens, so it was with common men and
women. Whenever a child was born, there was born with
him a double which followed him through the various stages
of life ; young while he was young, it grew to maturity and
declined along with him. And not only human beings, but
gods and animals, stones and trees, natural and artificial
objects, everybody and everything had its own soul or double.
The doubles of oxen and sheep were the duplicates of the
original oxen or sheep ; the doubles of linen or beds, of
chairs or knives, had the same form as the real linen, beds,
chairs, and knives. So thin and subtle was the stuff, so fine
and delicate the texture of these doubles that they made no
impression on ordinary eyes. Only certain classes of priests
or seers were enabled by natural gifts or special training to
perceive the doubles of the gods, and to win from them a
knowledge of the past and the future. The doubles of men
and things were hidden from sight in the ordinary course of
life ; still, they sometimes flew out of the body endowed with
colour and voice, left it in a kind of trance, and departed to
1 W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 47.
250 THE MANN IK IN SOUL chap.
manifest themselves at a distance.1 So exact is the
resemblance of the mannikin to the man, in other words,
of the soul to the body, that, as there are fat bodies and
thin bodies, so there are fat souls and thin souls ; 2 as
there are heavy bodies and light bodies, long bodies and
short bodies, so there are heavy souls and light souls, long
souls and short souls. The people of Nias (an island to the
west of Sumatra) think that every man, before he is born,
is asked how long or how heavy a soul he would like, and a
soul of the desired weight or length is measured out to him.
The heaviest soul ever given out weighs about ten grammes.
The length of a man's life is proportioned to the length of
his soul ; children who die young had short souls.3 The
Fijian conception of the soul as a tiny human being comes
clearly out in the customs observed at the death of a chief
among the Nakelo tribe. When a chief dies, certain men,
who are the hereditary undertakers, call him, as he lies, oiled
and ornamented, on fine mats, saying, " Rise, sir, the chief,
and let us be going. The day has come over the land."
Then they conduct him to the river side, where the ghostly
ferryman comes to ferry Nakelo ghosts across the stream.
As they thus attend the chief on his last journey, they hold
their great fans close to the ground to shelter him, because,
as one of them explained to a missionary, " His soul is only
a little child." 4 Sometimes, however, as we shall see, the
human soul is conceived not in human but in animal form.
1 G. Maspero, Etudes de Mythologie Berlin dargebracht (Berlin, 1890), pp.
et <F Archiologie igyptiennes (Paris, 89-95. Greek artists of a later period
!893), i. 388 sq. ; A. Wiedemann, sometimes portrayed the human soul in
The ancient Egyptian Doctrine of the the form of a butterfly (O. Jahn, op. cit.
Immortality of 'the Soul '(London, 1895), p. 138 sqq. ). There was a particular sort
p. 10 sqq. In Greek works of art, of butterfly to which the Greeks gave
especially vase-paintings, the human the name of soul (tyvxh). See Aristotle,
soul is sometimes represented as a tiny Hist. Anim. v. 19, p. 550, b. 26, p.
being in human form, generally winged, 551, b. 13 sq. ; Plutarch, Quaest.
sometimes clothed and armed, some- Conviv. ii. 3 2.
times naked. See O. Jahn, Archdolo- 2 Gill, Myths and Songs of the South
gische Beitrdge (Berlin, 1847), p. 128 Pacific, p. 1 7 1.
sqq. ; E. Pottier, Etude sur les licythes 3 H. Sundermann, " Die Insel
blancs Attiques (Paris, 1883), pp. 75- Nias und die Mission daselbst," All-
79; American Journal of Archaeology, gemeine Missions - Zeitschrift, bd. xi.
ii. (1886), pi. xii. xiii. ; O. Kern, in October 1884, p. 453.
Aits der Anomia, Archiiologische Beit- 4 Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a letter to
rage Carl Robert zur Erinnerung an the author, dated November 3rd, 189S.
ii DETENTION OF THE SOUL 251
The soul is commonly supposed to escape by the
natural openings of the body, especially the mouth and
nostrils. Hence in Celebes they sometimes fasten fish-
hooks to a sick man's nose, navel, and feet, so that if his
soul should try to escape it may be hooked and held
fast.1 When a Sea Dyak sorcerer or medicine-man is
initiated, his fingers are supposed to be furnished with fish-
hooks, with which he will thereafter clutch the human soul
in the act of flying away, and restore it to the body of the
sufferer.2 One of the implements of a Haida medicine-
man is a hollow bone, in which he bottles up departing
souls, and so restores them to their owners.3 When any one
yawns in their presence the Hindoos always snap their
thumbs, believing that this will hinder the soul from issuing
through the open mouth.4 The Marquesans used to hold
the mouth and nose of a dying man, in order to keep him in
life, by preventing his soul from escaping,5 and with the same
intention the Bagobos of the Philippine Islands put rings of
brass wire on the wrists or ankles of their sick.'5 On the
other hand, the Itonamas in South America seal up the
eyes, nose, and mouth of a dying person, in case his ghost
should get out and carry off others ; ' and for a similar
reason the people of Nias, who fear the spirits of the
recently deceased and identify them with the breath, seek to
confine the vagrant soul in its earthly tabernacle by bunging
up the nose or tying up the jaws of the corpse.8 Esquimaux
mourners plug their nostrils with deerskin, hair, or hay for
several days,1' probably to prevent their souls from following
1 B. F. Matthes, Over de Bissoes of (Paris, 1843), P- !I5; Gavel, Les
heidensche priesters en priesteressen der Marquisiens, p. 42 note.
Boeginezen, p. 24. 6 p, Blumentritt, "Das Stromgebiet
2 H. Ling Roth, " Low's Natives of des Rio Grande de Mindano," Peter-
Borneo," Journal op "the Anthropological manns Mitteilungen, xxxvii. (1891), p.
Institute, xxi. (1892), p. 115. ill.
:i G. M. Dawson, " On the Haida 7 D'Orbigny, L 'Homme Amiricain,
Indians of the Queen Charlotte Is- ii. 241 ; T. J. Hutchinson, " The
lands," Geological Survey of Canada, Chaco Indians," Transactions of the
Report of Progress for 1878-1879, pp. Ethnological Society of London, N.S.,
123 b, 139 b. iii. (1865), p. 322 so. ; Bastian,
4 Panjab Notes and Queries, ii. p. Cullitrldnder des a/ten Amerika, i.
"4, §665. 476.
5 M. Radiguet, Les demicrs sail- « E. Modigliani, Un viaggio a Nias
vages, p. 245 (ed. 1882); Matthias (Milan, 1890), p. 283.
G***, Lettres sitr les lies Marquises '•> Fr. Boas, " The Central Eskimo,"
252 DETENTION OF THE SOUL chap.
that of their departed friend ; the custom is especially
incumbent on the persons who dress the corpse.1 In
Southern Celebes, to hinder the escape of a woman's soul at
childbirth, the nurse ties a band as tightly as possible round
the body of the expectant mother.2 The Minangkabauers
of Sumatra observe a similar custom ; a skein of thread or a
string is sometimes fastened round the wrist or loins of a
woman in childbed, so that when her soul seeks to depart in
her hour of travail it may find the egress barred.8 And
lest the soul of the babe should escape and be lost as
soon as it is born, the Alfoors of Celebes, when a birth is
about to take place, are careful to close every opening in the
house, even the keyhole ; and they stop up every chink and
cranny in the walls. Also they tie up the mouths of all
animals inside and outside the house, for fear one of them
might swallow the child's soul. For a similar reason all
persons present in the house, even the mother herself, are
obliged to keep their mouths shut the whole time the birth
is taking place. When the question was put, Why they did
not hold their noses also, lest the child's soul should get into
one of them ? the answer was that breath being exhaled as
well as inhaled through the nostrils, the soul would be
expelled before it could have time to settle down.4
Popular expressions in the language of civilised peoples,
such as to have one's heart in one's mouth, or the soul on
the lips or in the nose, show how natural is the idea that the
life or soul may escape by the mouth or nostrils:'
Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of (London, 1S24), p. 370.
Ethnology (Washington, 1888), p. 613 2 B. F. Matthes, Bijdragen tot
sq. Among the Esquimaux of Smith de Ethnologic van Zuid-Celebes, p. 54.
Sound male mourners plug up the :i J. L. van der Toorn, " Het
right nostril and female mourners the animisme bij den Minangkabauer der
left (E. Bessels in American Natn raiist, Padagnsche Bovenlanden," Bijdragen
xviii. (1884), p. 877; cp. J. Murdoch, tot dc Taal- Land- en Volkenknnde van
"Ethnological Results of the Point Nederlandsch Indie, xxx'xx. (1890), p. 56.
Barrow Expedition," Ninth Annual 4 Zimmermann, Die Inseln des In-
Keport of the Bureau of Ethnology dischen und Stillen Mccres, ii. 386 sq.
(Washington, 1892), p. 425). This 5 Compare tovtov ko.t uj/xov delpov,
seems to point to a belief that the soul #XP(S V ^-VXV I o.vtov iirl x£L^uv l^ovvov
enters by one nostril and goes out by y KaK-rj \e«pdrj, Herondas, Mimiambi,
the other, and that the functions iii. 3 sq. ; ixbvov ovk eirl rots xe'^€<Tt
assigned to the right and left nostrils rd? i/'i'xas exovras, Dio Chrysostom,
in this respect are reversed in men and Oral, xxxii. vol. i. p. 41 J, ed.
women. Dindorf; " mi hi anima in naso esse,
1 G. F. Lyon, Private Journal stabam tanquam mortteus," Petronius,
ii THE SOUL AS A BIRD 253
Often the soul is conceived as a bird ready to take
flight. This conception has probably left traces in most
languages,1 and it lingers as a metaphor in poetry. But
what is metaphor to a modern European poet was sober
earnest to his savage ancestor, and is still so to many
people. The Bororos of Brazil fancy that the human
soul has the shape of a bird, and passes in that shape
out of the body in dreams.2 According to the Bilqula
or Bella Coola Indians of British Columbia the soul
dwells in the nape of the neck and resembles a bird
enclosed in an egg. If the shell breaks and the soul flies
away, the man must die. If he swoons or becomes crazed,
it is because his soul has flown away without breaking its
shell. The shaman can hear the buzzing of its wings, like
the buzz of a mosquito, as the soul flits past ; and he may
catch and replace it in the nape of its owner's neck.3 A
Melanesian wizard in Lepers' Island has been known to
send out his soul in the form of an eagle to pursue a ship
and learn the fortunes of some natives who were being
carried off in it.4 The soul of Aristeas of Proconnesus was
seen to issue from his mouth in the shape of a raven.5
There is a popular opinion in Bohemia that the parting soul
comes forth from the mouth like a white bird.6 The Malays
carry out the conception of the bird-soul in a number of odd
ways. If the soul is a bird on the wing, it may be attracted
by rice, and so either prevented from taking wing or lured
back again from its perilous flight. Thus in Java when a
Sat. 62 ; " /// pi i mis labris an? mam avairrepob), etc.
habere," Seneca, Natur. Quaest, iii. - K. von den Steinen, Unter den
praef. 16; " Voila un pauvre malade Naturvolkern Zcntral-Brasiliens (Ber-
qui a le feu dans le corps, et I'dme sur lin, 1S94), pp. 511, 512.
le bout des levres," J. de Brebeuf, in 3 Fr. Boas, in Seventh Report on the
Relations des Je'suites, 1636, p. 113 North- Western Tribes of Canada, p. 1 4
(Canadian reprint) ; " This posture sq. (separate reprint of the Report of
keeps the weary soul hanging upon the the British Association for 1 891).
lip ; ready to leave the carcass, and 4 R. H. Codrington, The Melan-
yet not suffered to take its wing," R. esians, p. 207 sq.
Bentley, " Sermon on Popery," quoted 5 Pliny, Nat. Idist. vii. 174. Coin-
in Monk's Life of Bentley? i. 382. pare Herodotus, iv. 14 sq. ; Maximus
In Czech they say of a dying person Tyrius, Dissert, xvi. 2.
that his soul is on his tongue (Br. G Br. Jelinek, " Materialien zur
Jeh'nek, in Mittheilungen der anthro- Vorgeschichte unci Volkskunde Boh-
polog. Gesellschaft in IVien, xxi. (1891), mens," Mittheilungen der anthro-
P- 22)- pologischen Gesellschaft in IVien, xxi.
1 Compare the Greek Trordo/xai, ( 1S91 ), p. 22.
254 THE SOUL AS A BIRD chap.
child is placed on the ground for the first time (a moment
which uncultured people seem to regard as especially
dangerous), it is put in a hen-coop and the mother makes a
clucking sound, as if she were calling hens.1 Amongst the
Battas of Sumatra, when a man returns from a dangerous
enterprise, grains of rice are placed on his head, and these
grains are called padirnma tondi, that is, " means to make the
soul {tondi) stay at home." In Java also rice is placed on the
head of persons who have escaped a great danger or have
returned home unexpectedly after it had been supposed that
they were lost.2 Similarly in the district of Sintang in
West Borneo, if any one has had a great fright, or escaped a
serious peril, or comes back after a long and dangerous
journey, or has taken a solemn oath, the first thing that his
relations or friends do is to strew yellow rice on his head,
mumbling, " Cluck ! cluck ! soul ! " {koer, koer semangaf).
And when a person, whether man, woman, or child, has
fallen out of a house or off a tree, and has been brought
home, his wife or other kinswoman goes as speedily as
possible to the spot where the accident happened, and there
strews rice, which has been coloured yellow, while she
utters the words, "Cluck! cluck! soul! So-and-so is in
his house again. Cluck ! cluck ! soul ! " Then she gathers
up the rice in a basket, carries it to the sufferer, and drops
the grains from her hand on his head, saying again, " Cluck !
cluck ! soul ! " Here the intention clearly is to decoy back
the loitering bird-soul and replace it in the head of its owner.
In Southern Celebes they think that a bridegroom's soul is
apt to fly away at marriage, so coloured rice is scattered over
him to induce it to stay. And, in general, at festivals in
South Celebes rice is strewed on the head of the person in
whose honour the festival is held, with the object of detaining
his soul, which at such times is in especial danger of being
lured away by envious demons.4 For example, after a
1 G. A. Wilken, " Het animisme Nederlandsch Indie, xlvii. (1897), p. 57.
bij cle volken van den Indischen 4 B. F. Matthes, Bijdragen tot de
Archipel," De Indische Gids, June Ethnologic van Zitid-Celebes, p. 33 ;
1884, p. 944. id., Over de Bissoes of heidensche
2 Wilken, I.e. priesters en priesteressen der Boeginezen,
3 E. L. M. Kiihr, " Schetsen uit p. 9 sq.; id., Makassaarsch-Hollandsch
Borneo's Westerafdeeling, " Bijdragen Woordenboek, s.vv. Koerroe and soe-
tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van manga, pp. 41, 569. Of ihese two
II
THE SOUL AS A BIRD
=55
successful war the welcome to the victorious prince takes the
form of strewing him with roasted and coloured rice " to
prevent his life-spirit, as if it were a bird, from flying out of
his body in consequence of the envy of evil spirits." x
Among the Minangkabauers of Sumatra the old rude
notions of the soul seem to be dying out. Nowadays most
of the people hold that the soul, being immaterial, has no
shape or form. But some of the sorcerers assert that the
soul goes and comes in the shape of a tiny man. Others
are of opinion that it does so in the form of a fly ; hence
they make food ready to induce the absent soul to come
back, and the first flv that settles on the food is regarded as
7 J O
the returning truant. But in native poetry and popular
expressions there are traces of the belief that the soul quits
the body in the form of a bird.2
The soul of a sleeper is supposed to wander away from
his body and actually to visit the places, to see the persons,
and to perform the acts of which he dreams. For example,
when an Indian of Brazil or Guiana wakes up from a sound
sleep, he is firmly convinced that his soul has really been away
hunting, fishing, felling trees, or whatever else he has dreamed
of doing, while all the time his body has been lying motion-
less in his hammock. A whole Bororo village has been
thrown into a panic and nearly deserted because somebody
had dreamed that he saw enemies stealthily approaching it.
A Macusi Indian in weak health, who dreamed that his
employer had made him haul the canoe up a series of
difficult cataracts, bitterly reproached his master next
morning for his want of consideration in thus making a poor
invalid go out and toil during the night.3 Now this absence
words, the former means the sound made
in calling fowls, and the latter means
the soul. The expression for the cere-
monies described in the text is
apakoerroe soemdnga. So common is
the recall of the bird-soul among the
Malays that the words koer or kur
sei/iangat ("cluck! cluck! soul!")
often amount to little more than an
expression of astonishment, like our
" Good gracious me ! " See W. W.
Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 47, note 2.
1 J. K. Niemann, " De Boegineezen
en Makassaren," Bijdragen tot de Taal-
Land- en Volkenkunde vanNederlandsch
Indie, xxxviii. (1889), p. 281.
2 J. L. van der Toorn, " Het
animisme bij den Minangkabauer der
Padagnsche Bovenlanden," Bijdragen
tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch Indie, xxxix. (1S90),
pp. 56-58.
3 K. von den Steinen, Unter den
Naturvolkerh Zentral- Brasiliens, p.
340 ; E. F. im Thurn, Among the In-
dians of Guiana, p. 344 sqq. A
256 SOUL ABSENT IN SLEEP chap
of the soul in sleep has its dangers, for if from any cause
the soul should be permanently detained away from the
body, the person thus deprived of the vital principle must
die.1 There is a German belief that the soul escapes from
a sleeper's mouth in the form of a white mouse or a little
bird, and that to prevent the return of the bird or animal
would be fatal to the sleeper.2 Hence in Transylvania they
say that you should not let a child sleep with its mouth
open, or its soul will slip out in the shape of a mouse, and
the child will never wake.3
Many causes may detain the sleeper's soul. Thus, his
soul may meet the soul of another sleeper and the two souls
may fight ; if a Guinea negro wakens with sore bones in the
morning, he thinks that his soul has been thrashed by
another soul in sleep.4 Or it may meet the soul of a person
just deceased and be carried off by it ; hence in the Aru
Islands the inmates of a house will not sleep the night after
a death has taken place in it, because the soul of the
deceased is supposed to be still in the house and they fear
to meet it in a dream.5 Again, the soul may be prevented
by an accident or by physical force from returning. When
a Dyak dreams of falling into the water, he supposes that
this accident has really befallen his spirit, and he sends for
a wizard, who fishes for the spirit with a hand- net in a
basin of water till he catches it and restores it to its owner.0
The Santals tell how a man fell asleep, and growing very
thirsty, his soul, in the form of a lizard, left his body and
entered a pitcher of water to drink. Just then the owner of
striking instance of the faith which Volksbrauch titer Siebenbiirger Sachsen
savages repose in their dreams may (Berlin, 1893), p. 167.
be read in the Relations des Je'suites, 4 J. L. Wilson, Western Africa
1642, p. 86 sq. (Canadian reprint). (London, 1856), p. 220; A. B. Ellis,
An Indian dreamed that he was taken The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave
and burnt alive by the Iroquois. So Coast, p. 20.
next day his friends kindled a number 5 J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en
of fires and partially burned him, by kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en
applying lighted torches to his naked Papna, p. 267. For detention of
body, in order to save him from being sleeper's soul by spirits and consequent
wholly burnt by his enemies. illness, see also Mason, quoted in
1 Shway Yoe, The Pun/tan, his Bastian's Die Volker des ostlichen Asien,
Life and Notions, ii. 100. ii. 387 note.
- R. Andree, Braunschweiger Folks- ° II. Ling Roth, " Low's Natives
kunde (Brunswick, 1S96), p. 266. of Borneo," Journal of the Anthropo-
3 H. von Wlislocki, Volksglaube und logical Institute, xxi. (1892), p. 112.
ii SOUL ABSENT IN SLEEP 257
the pitcher happened to cover it ; so the soul could not
return to the body and the man died. While his friends
were preparing to burn the body some one uncovered the
pitcher to get water. The lizard thus escaped and returned
to the body, which immediately revived ; so the man rose
up and asked his friends why they were weeping. They
told him they thought he was dead and were about to burn
his body. He said he had been down a well to get water,
but had found it hard to get out and had just returned. So
they saw it all.1 A similar story is reported from Transyl-
vania as follows. In the account of a witch's trial at
Miihlbach last century it is said that a woman had engaged
two men to work in her vineyard. After noon they all lay
down to rest as usual. An hour later the men got up and
tried to waken the woman, but could not. She lay motion-
less with her mouth wide open. They came back at sunset
and still she lay like a corpse. Just at that moment a big
fly came buzzing past, which one of the men caught and
shut up in his leathern pouch. Then they tried again to
waken the woman but could not. Afterwards they let out
the fly ; it flew straight into the woman's mouth and she
awoke. On seeing this the men had no further doubt that
she was a witch.'2
It is a common rule with primitive people not to waken
a sleeper, because his soul is away and might not have time
to get back ; so if the man wakened without his soul, he
would fall sick. If it is absolutely necessary to rouse a
sleeper, it must be done very gradually, to allow the soul
time to return.3 A Fijian in Matuku, suddenly wakened
1 Indian Antiquary, vii. (1S7S), p. type the sleeper's soul issues from his
273; Bastian, Vblkerstamme am Brah- nose in the form of a cricket (Wilken
maputra, p. 127. A similar story is \xiDe Indische Gids, June 1884, p. 940).
told by the Hindoos, though the lizard In a Swabian story a girl's soul creeps
form of the soul is not mentioned. See out of her mouth in the form of a
Panjab Notes and Queries, iii. § 679. white mouse (Birlinger, Volksthiim-
2 E. Gerard, The Land beyond the liches aits Schwaben, i. 303).
Torest, ii. 27 sq. A similar story is told 3 Shway Yoe, The Bur/nan, ii. 103 ;
in Holland (J. W. Wolf, Nederland- R. G. Woodthorpe in Journal of the
sche Sagen, No. 250, p. 343 sq.). The Anthropological Institute, xxvi. (1897),
story of King Gunthram belongs to the p. 23 ; Bastian, Die Volker des bstlichen
same class ; the king's soul comes out Asien, ii. 389 ; Blumentritt, " Der
of his mouth as a small reptile (Paulus Ahnencultus und die religiosen An-
D'mconus, Jlist.Langobardor urn, iii. 24)- schauungen der Malaien des Philip-
In an East Indian story of the same pinen-Archipels," Mittheilungen der
VOL. I S
258 SOUL ABSENT IN SLEEP chap.
from a nap by somebody treading on his foot, has been
heard bawling after his soul and imploring it to return.
He had just been dreaming that he was far away in Tonga,
and great was his alarm on suddenly wakening to find his
body in Matuku. Death stared him in the face unless his
soul could be induced to speed at once across the sea and
reanimate its deserted tenement. The man would probably
have died of fright if a missionary had not been at hand to
allay his terror.1 Some Brazilian Indians explain the head-
ache from which a man sometimes suffers after a broken
sleep by saying that his soul is tired with the exertions it
made to return quickly to the body.2 A Highland story,
told to Hugh Miller on the picturesque shores of Loch Shin,
well illustrates the haste made by the soul to regain its body
when the sleeper has been prematurely roused by an indis-
creet friend. Two young men had been spending the early
part of a warm summer day in the open air, and sat down
on a mossy bank to rest. Hard by was an ancient ruin
separated from the bank on which they sat only by a
slender runnel, across which there lay, immediately over a
miniature cascade, a few withered stalks of grass. " Over-
come by the heat of the day, one of the young men fell
asleep ; his companion watched drowsily beside him ; when
all at once the watcher was aroused to attention by seeing a
little indistinct form, scarce larger than a humble-bee, issue
from the mouth of the sleeping man, and, leaping upon the
moss, move downwards to the runnel, which it crossed along
the withered grass stalks, and then disappeared among the
interstices of the ruin. Alarmed by what he saw, the
watcher hastily shook his companion by the shoulder, and
awoke him ; though, with all his haste, the little cloud-like
creature, still more rapid in its movements, issued from the
Wiener Geogr. Gesellschaft, 1882, p. K. von den Steinen, Unter den Natur-
209 ; Riedel, De sluik- en kroes- volkern Zentral-Brasiliens, pp. 340,
harige rassen tusschen Selebes en 510; L. F. Gowing, Five Thousand
Papua, p. 440; id., "Die Land- Miles in a Sledge (London, 1889),
schaft Dawan oder West-Timor," p. 226.
Deutsche Geosrraphische Blatter, x. 280: , „ T . „. . ,
. r, v .". ,11? , L Rev. Lonmer luson, in a letter to
A. C Kruiit, "ben en ander aan- . il . . . ' , „ „
j , ' ,.., . , ,.-, the author dated August 26th, ibgs.
gaande het geestehjk en maatschapehjk *> ' y
leven van den Poso-Alfoer," Mededee- - K. von den Steinen, Unter den
lingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zen- Naturvolketn Zentral-Brasiliens, p.
delinggenootschap, xxxix. (1895), p. 4; 340.
ii SOUL ABSENT IN SLEEP 259
interstice into which it had gone, and, flying across the
runnel, instead of creeping over the grass stalks and over
the sward, as before, it re-entered the mouth of the sleeper,
just as he was in the act of awakening. ' What is the
matter with you ? ' said the watcher, greatly alarmed, ' what
ails you ? ' ' Nothing ails me,' replied the other ; ' but you
have robbed me of a most delightful dream. I dreamed I
was walking through a fine rich country, and came at length
to the shores of a noble river ; and, just where the clear
water went thundering down a precipice, there was a bridge
all of silver, which I crossed ; and then, entering a noble
palace on the opposite side, I saw great heaps of gold and
jewels ; and I was just going to load myself with treasure,
when you rudely awoke me, and I lost all' " 1
Still more dangerous is it in the opinion of primitive
man to move a sleeper or alter his appearance, for if this
were done the soul on its return might not be able to find
or recognise its body, and so the person would die. The
Minangkabauers of Sumatra deem it highly improper to
blacken or dirty the face of a sleeper, lest the absent soul
should shrink from re-entering a body thus disfigured.2 In
Bombay it is thought equivalent to murder to change the
aspect of a sleeper, as by painting his face in fantastic
colours or giving moustaches to a sleeping woman. For
when the soul returns it will not know its own body and
the person will die.3 The Servians believe that the soul of
a sleeping witch often leaves her body in the form of a
butterfly. If during its absence her body be turned round,
so that her feet are placed where her head was before, the
butterfly soul will not find its way back into her body
through the mouth, and the witch will die.4 The Esthonians
of the island of Oesel think that the gusts which sweep up
1 Hugh Miller, My Schools and 3 Punjab Notes and Queries, iii.
Schoolmasters (Edinburgh, 1S54), ch. p. 1 16, §530.
vi. p. 106 sq. 4 Ralston, Songs of the Pussiaii
People, p. 117 sq. ; F. S. Krauss,
- J. L. van der Toorn, " Het ani- Volksglaube und religioser Branch der
misme bij den Minangkabauer der Siidslaven, p. 112. The latter writer
Padagnsche Bovenlanden," Bijdrage tells us that the witch's spirit is also
tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde supposed to assume the form of a fly,
van Nederlandsch Indie, _;xxix. (1890), a hen, a turkey, a crow, and especially
p. 50. a toad.
260 SOUL ABSENT IN SLEEP chap.
all kinds of trifles from the ground and whirl them along,
are the souls of old women, who have gone out in this shape
to seek what they can find. Meantime the beldame's body
lies as still as a stone, and if you turn it round her soul will
never be able to enter it again, until you have replaced the
body in its original position. You can hear the soul
whining and whimpering till it has found the right aperture.1
Similarly in Livonia they think that when the soul of a
were-wolf is out on his hateful business, his body lies like
dead ; and if meanwhile the body were accidentally moved,
the soul would never more find its way into it, but would
remain in the body of a wolf till death.2 In the picturesque
but little known Black Mountain of Southern France, which
forms a sort of link between the Pyrenees and the Cevennes,
they tell how a woman, who had long been suspected of
being a witch, one day fell asleep at noon among the
reapers in the field. Resolved to put her to the test, the
reapers carried her, while she slept, to another part of the
field, leaving a large pitcher on the spot from which they
had moved her. When her soul returned, it entered the
pitcher and cunningly rolled it over and over till the vessel
lay beside her body, of which the soul thereupon took
possession.3
But in order that a man's soul should quit his body, it
is not necessary that he should be asleep. It may quit him
in his waking hours, and then sickness, insanity, or death
will be the result. Thus the Ilocanes of Luzon think that a
man may lose his soul in the woods or gardens, and that he
who has thus lost his soul loses also his senses. Hence before
they quit the woods or the fields they call to their soul,
" Let us go ! let us go ! " lest it should loiter behind or go
astray. And when a man becomes crazed or mad, they
take him to the place where he is supposed to have lost his
soul and invite the truant spirit to return to his body.4 The
1 Holzmayer, " Osiliana," Verhand- 3 A. de Nore, Continues, Mythes et
lungen der Estnischen Gesellschaft zu Traditions des Provinces de France,
Dorpat, vii. (1872), No. 2, p. 53. p. 88.
4 De los Reyes y Florentino, " Die
2 P. Einhorn, " Wiederlegunge der religiose Anschauungen der Ilocanen
Abgotterey," etc., reprinted in Scrip- (Luzon)," Mittheilnngen der k. k.
tores Reritm Livonicarum, ii. 645 (Riga Geograph. Gesellschaft in Wien, xxxi.
and Leipsic, 1848). (1888), p. 569 sq.
ii RECALL OF THE SOUL 261
Mongols sometimes explain sickness by supposing that the
patient's soul is absent, and either does not care to return
to its body or cannot find the way back. To secure the
return of the soul it is therefore necessary on the one hand
to make its body as attractive as possible, and on the other
hand to show the soul the way home. To make the body
attractive all the sick man's best clothes and most valued
possessions are placed beside him ; he is washed, incensed,
and made as comfortable as may be ; and all his friends
march thrice round the hut calling out the sick man's name
and coaxing his soul to return. To help the soul to find its
way back a coloured cord is stretched from the patient's
head to the door of the hut. The priest in his robes reads
a list of the horrors of hell and the dangers incurred by
souls which wilfully absent themselves from their bodies.
Then turning to the assembled friends and the patient he
asks, " Is it come ? " All answer " Yes," and bowing to the
returning soul throw seed over the sick man. The cord
which guided the soul back is then rolled up and placed
round the patient's neck, who must wear it for seven days
without taking it off. No one may frighten or hurt him,
lest his soul, not yet familiar with its body, should again take
flight.1 Some of the Congo tribes believe that when a man
is ill, his soul has left his body and is wandering at large.
The aid of the sorcerer is then called in to capture the
vagrant spirit and restore it to the invalid. Generally the
physician declares that he has successfully chased the soul
into the branch of a tree. The whole town thereupon turns
out and accompanies the doctor to the tree, where the
strongest men are deputed to break off the branch in which
the soul of the sick man is supposed to be lodged. This
they do and carry the branch back to the town, insinuating
by their gestures that the burden is heavy and hard to bear.
When the branch has been brought to the sick man's hut, he
is placed in an upright position by its side, and the sorcerer
performs the enchantments by which the soul is believed
to be restored to its owner.2 The soul or shade of a Dene or
1 Bastian, Die Seele und ihre Er- 2 H. Ward, Five Years with the
scheinungwesen in tier Ethnographie, Congo Cannibals (London, 1S90), p.
P- 36. 53 sq.
262
RECALL OF THE SOUL
CHAP.
Tinneh Indian in the old days generally remained invisible,
but appeared wandering about in one form or another when-
ever disease or death was imminent. All the efforts of the
sufferer's friends were therefore concentrated on catching
the wandering shade. The method adopted was simple.
They stuffed the patient's moccasins with down and hung
them up. If next morning the down was warm, they made
sure that the lost soul was in the boots, with which accord-
ingly they carefully and silently shod their suffering friend.
Nothing more could reasonably be demanded for a perfect
cure.1 Among the Dyaks of the Kajan and Lower Melawie
districts you will often see, in houses where there are children,
a basket of a peculiar shape with shells and dried fruits
attached to it. These shells contain the remains of the
children's navel-strings, and the basket to which they are
fastened is commonly hung beside the place where the
children sleep. When a child is frightened, for example by
being bathed or by the bursting of a thunderstorm, its soul
flees from its body and nestles beside its old familiar friend
the navel-string in the basket, from which the mother easily
induces it to return by shaking the basket and pressing it to the
child's body.'2 In an Indian story a king conveys his soul into
the dead body of a Brahman, and a hunchback conveys his soul
into the deserted body of the king. The hunchback is now
king and the king is a Brahman. However, the hunchback is
induced to show his skill by transferring his soul to the dead
body of a parrot, and the king seizes the opportunity to regain
possession of his own body.3 In another Indian story a Brah-
man reanimates the dead body of a king by conveying his own
soul into it. Meantime the Brahman's body has been burnt,
and his soul is obliged to remain in the body of the king.4
Similarly the Greeks told how the soul of Hermotimus of
1 A. G. Morice, "The Western
Denes, their manners and customs,"
Proceedings of the Canadian Institute,
Toronto, Third Series, vii. (18S8-1SS9),
p. 158 sq.; id., An pays de I Ours
Noir, chez les Sauvages de la Colombie
Britannique (Paris and Lyons, 1S97),
P. 75-
2 E. L. M. Kiihr, " Schetsen uit
Borneo's Westerafdeeling," Bijdragen
tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenknnde van
Nederlandsch- Indie, xlvii. (1897), p.
60 sq.
3 Pantschatantra, Ben fey, ii. 124 sqq.
4 Katha Sarit Sdgara, translated by
Tawney, i. 2 1 sq. For other Indian tales
of the same general type, with variations
in detail, see Lett?-es idifiantes et curi-
euses, xii. 183 sq. ; North Indian Notes
and Queries, iv. p. 28, § 54.
II
SOUL OF SULTAN BA YAZID 263
Clazomenae used to quit his body and roam far and wide,
bringing back intelligence of what he had seen on his rambles
to his friends at home; until one day, when his spirit was abroad,
his enemies contrived to seize his deserted body and committed
it to the flames.1 It is said that during the last seven years
of his life Sultan Bayazid ate nothing that had life and blood
in it. One day, being seized with a great longing for sheep's
trotters, he struggled long in this glorious contest with his
soul, until at last, a savoury dish of trotters being set before
him, he said unto his soul, " My soul, the trotters are before
thee ; if thou wishest to enjoy them, leave the body and
feed on them." Hardly had he uttered these words when a
living creature was seen to issue from his mouth and drink
of the juice in the dish, after which it endeavoured to return
whence it came. But the austere sultan, determined to
mortify his carnal appetite, prevented it with his hand from
entering his mouth, and when it fell to the ground com-
manded that it should be beaten. The pages kicked it to
death, and after this murder of his soul the sultan remained
in gloomy seclusion, taking no part or interest in the affairs
of government.2
If The departure of the soul is not always voluntary. It
may be extracted from the body against its will by ghosts,
demons, or sorcerers. Hence, when a funeral is passing the
house, the Karens of Burma tie their children with a special
kind of string to a particular part of the house, in case the
souls of the children should leave their bodies and go into
the corpse which is passing. The children are kept tied in
this way until the corpse is out of sight.3 And after the
corpse has been laid in the grave, but before the earth has
1 Pliny, Nat. Hist. vii. 174; Plu- from the Turkish by the Ritter Joseph
tarch, De genio Socralis, 22 ; Lucian, von Hammer (Oriental Translation
Muscae Enconium, 7. Plutarch calls Fund), vol. i. pt. ii. p. 3. I have not
the man Hermodorus. Epimenides, seen this work. An extract from it,
the Cretan seer, had also the power of containing the above narrative, was
sending his soul out of his body and kindly sent me by Colonel F. Tyrrel,
keeping it out as long as he pleased. and the exact title and reference were
See Hesychius Milesius, in Fragmenta supplied to me by Mr. R. A. Nichol-
Historicorum Graecorum, ed. Muller, son, who was so good as to consult the
iv. 162 ; Suidas, s.v. 'E-irLfxevidrjs. book for me in the British Museum.
2 Narrative of Travels in Europe, 3 E. B. Cross, " On the Karens,"
Asia, and Africa in the Seventeenth Journal of the American Oriental
Century by Evliya Efcndi, translated Society, iv. (1854), p. 311.
264 RECALL OF THE SOUL chap.
been filled in, the mourners and friends range themselves
round the grave, each with a bamboo split lengthwise in one
hand and a little stick in the other ; each man thrusts his
bamboo into the grave, and drawing the stick along the
groove of the bamboo points out to his soul that in this way
it may easily climb up out of the tomb. While the earth
is being filled in, the bamboos are kept out of the way, lest
the souls should be in them, and so should be inadvertently
buried with the earth as it is being thrown into the grav3 ;
and when the people leave the spot they carry away the
bamboos, begging their souls to come with them.1 Further,
on returning from the grave each Karen provides himself
with three little hooks made of branches of trees, and calling
his spirit to follow him, at short intervals, as he returns, he
makes a motion as if hooking it, and then thrusts the hook
into the ground. This is done to prevent the soul of the
living from staying behind with the soul of the dead.2 On
the return of a Burmese or Shan family from a burial, old
men tie up the wrists of each member of the family with
string, to prevent his or her " butterfly " or soul from
escaping ; and this string remains till it is worn out and
falls off.3 When a mother dies leaving a young baby, the
Burmese think that the " butterfly " or soul of the baby
follows that of the mother, and that if it is not recovered
the child must die. So a wise woman is called in to get
back the baby's soul. She places a mirror near the corpse,
and on the mirror a piece of feathery cotton down.
Holding a cloth in her open hands at the foot of the mirror,
she with wild words entreats the mother not to take with
her the " butterfly " or soul of her child, but to send it back.
As the gossamer down slips from the face of the mirror she
catches it in the cloth and tenderly places it on the baby's
breast. The same ceremony is sometimes observed when
one of two children that have played together dies, and is
thought to be luring away the soul of its playmate to the
spirit-land. It is sometimes performed also for a bereaved
1 A. R. M'Mahon, The Karens of Society of Bengal, 1866, pt. ii. p. 28 sq.
the Golden Chersonese, p. 318. 3 R. G. Woodthorpe, in Journal of
2 F. Mason, " Physical Character of the Anthropological Institute, xxvi.
the Karens," Journal of the Asiatic (1S97), p. 23.
ii RECALL OF THE SOUL 265
husband or wife.1 Among some of the Dyak tribes of
south-eastern Borneo, as soon as the coffin is carried to the
place of burial, the house in which the death occurred is
sprinkled with water, and the father of the family calls out
the names of all his children and the other members of his
household. For they think that the ghost loves to decoy
away the souls of his kinsfolk, but that his designs upon
them can be defeated by calling out their names, which has
the effect of bringing back the souls to their owners. The
same ceremony is repeated on the return from the burial.2 It
is a rule with the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia that
a corpse must not be coffined in the house, or the souls of the
other inmates would enter the coffin, and they, too, would
die. The body is taken out' either through the roof or
through a hole made in one of the walls, and is then coffined
outside the house.3 In the East Indian island of Keisar
it is deemed imprudent to go near a grave at night, lest the
ghosts should catch and keep the soul of the passer-by.4
The Kei Islanders believe that the spirits of their forefathers,
angry at not receiving food, make people sick by detaining
their souls. So they lay offerings of food on the grave and
beg their ancestors to allow the soul of the sick to return
or to drive it home speedily if it should be lingering by the
way.5
In Bolang Mongondo, a district in the west of Celebes,
all sickness is ascribed to the ancestral spirits who have
carried off the patient's soul. The object therefore is to
bring back the soul of the sufferer and restore it to him.
An eye-witness has thus described the attempted cure of a
sick boy. The priestesses, who acted as physicians, made
a doll of cloth and fastened it to the point of a spear, which
an old woman held upright. Round this doll the priestesses
danced, uttering charms, and chirruping as when one calls
1 C. J. S. F. Forbes, British the North-Western Tribes of Canada,
Burma, p. 99 sq. ; Shvvay Yoe, The p. 6 (separate reprint from the Report
Bin-man, \\. 102; Bastian, Die Vblker of the British Association for 1896).
des ostlichen Asien, ii. 389.
2 F. Grabowsky, in Internationales Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige
Archiv fiir Ethnographic, ii. (18S9), rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p.
p. 182. 414.
3 Fr. Boas, in Eleventh Report on 5 Riedel, op. oil. p. 221 sq.
266 RECALL OF THE SOUL chap.
a dog. Then the old woman lowered the point of the spear
a little, so that the priestesses could reach the doll. By this
time the soul of the sick boy was supposed to be in the doll,
having been brought into it by the incantations. So the
priestesses approached it cautiously on tiptoe and caught the
soul in the many-coloured cloths which they had been waving
in the air. Then they laid the soul on the boy's head, that
is, they wrapped his head in the cloth in which the soul was
supposed to be, and stood still for some moments with great
gravity, holding their hands on the patient's head. Suddenly
there was a jerk, the priestesses whispered and shook their
heads, and the cloth was taken off — the soul had escaped.
The priestesses gave chase to it, running round and round
the house, clucking and gesticulating as if they were driving
hens into a poultry-yard. At last they recaptured the soul
at the foot of the stair and restored it to its owner as before.1
Much in the same way an Australian medicine-man will
sometimes bring the lost soul of a sick man into a puppet
and restore it to the patient by pressing the puppet to his
breast.2 In Uea, one of the Loyalty Islands, the souls of
the dead seem to have been credited with the power of
stealing the souls of the living. For when a man was sick
the soul-doctor would go with a large troop of men and
women to the graveyard. Here the men played on flutes
and the women whistled softly to lure the soul home. After
this had gone on for some time they formed in procession and
moved homewards, the flutes playing and the women whistling
all the way, while they led back the wandering soul and drove
it gently along with open palms. On entering the patient's
dwelling they commanded the soul in a loud voice to enter
his body.3 In Madagascar when a man was sick or lunatic in
consequence of the loss of his soul, his friends dispatched a
wizard in haste to fetch him a soul from the graveyard.
The emissary repaired by night to the spot, and having made
a hole in the wooden house which served as a tomb, begged
the soul of the patient's father to bestow a soul on his son
1 N. Ph. Wilken en J. A. Schwarz, 2 James Dawson, Australian Abor-
" Het heidendom en de Islam in igines, p. 57 sq.
Bolaang Mongondou," Alededeelingen
van wege het Nederlandsche Zendeiing- 3 W. W. Gill, Myths and Songs of
genootschap, xi. (1867), p. 263 jv/. the South Pacific, p. 171 sq.
ii RECALL OF THE SOUL 267
or daughter, who had none. So saying he applied a bonnet
to the hole, then folded it up and rushed back to the house
of the sufferer, saying he had a soul for him. With that he
clapped the bonnet on the head of the invalid, who at once
said he felt much better and had recovered the soul which he
had lost.1
When a Dyak or Malay of some of the western tribes
or districts of Borneo is taken ill, with vomiting and profuse
sweating as the only symptoms, he thinks that one of his
deceased kinsfolk or ancestors is at the bottom of it. To
discover which of them is the culprit, a wise man or woman
pulls a lock of hair on the crown of the sufferer's head, calling
out the names of all his dead relations. The name at which
the lock gives forth a sound is the name of the guilty party.
If the patient's hair is too short to be pulled with effect,
he knocks his forehead seven times against the forehead
of a kinsman who has long hair. The hair of the latter
is then pulled instead of that of the patient and answers
to the test quite as well. When the blame has thus
been satisfactorily laid at the door of the ghost who is
responsible for the sickness, the physician, who is generally
an old woman, remonstrates with him on his ill behaviour.
" Go back," says she, " to your grave ; what do you come
here for ? The soul of the sick man does not choose to be
called by you, and will remain yet a long time in its body."
Then she puts some ashes from the hearth in a winnowing
van and moulds out of them a small figure or image in
human likeness. Seven times she moves the basket with
the little ashen figure up and down before the patient, taking
care not to obliterate the figure, while at the same time she
says, " Sickness, settle in the head, belly, hands, etc. ; then
quickly pass into the corresponding part of the image,"
whereupon the patient spits on the ashen image and pushes
it from him with his left hand. Next the beldame lights a
candle and goes to the grave of the person whose ghost is
doing all the mischief. On the grave she throws the figure
of ashes, calling out, " Ghost, plague the sick man no longer,
and stay in your grave, that he may see you no more." On
her return she asks the anxious relations in the house, " Has
1 De Flacourt, Histoire de la grande Isle Madagascar (Paris, 1658), p. 101 sq.
268 RECALL OF THE SOUL chap.
his soul come back ? " and they must answer quickly, " Yes,
the soul of the sick man has come back." Then she stands\
beside the patient, blows out the candle which had lighted
the returning soul on its way, and strews yellow-coloured
rice on the head of the convalescent, saying, " Cluck, soul !
cluck, soul ! cluck, soul ! " Last of all she fastens on his'
right wrist a bracelet or ring which he must wear for three
days.1 In this case we see that the saving of the soul is
combined with a vicarious sacrifice to the ghost, who receives
a puppet on which to work his will instead of on the poor
soul. In San Cristoval, one of the Melanesian islands, the
vicarious sacrifice takes the form of a pig or a fish. A
malignant ghost of the name of Tapia is supposed to have
seized on the sick man's soul and tied it up to a banyan-tree.
Accordingly a man who has influence with Tapia takes a pig
or fish to the holy place where the ghost resides and offers it
to him, saying, " This is for you to eat in place of that man ;
eat this, don't kill him." This satisfies the ghost ; the soul
is loosed from the tree and carried back to the sufferer, who
naturally recovers.2 In one of the New Hebrides a ghost
will sometimes impound the souls of trespassers within a
magic fence in his garden, and will only consent to pull up
the fence and let the souls out on receiving an unqualified
apology and a satisfactory assurance that no personal dis-
respect was intended.3 In Motlav, another Melanesian island,
it is enough to call out the sick man's name in the sacred
place where he rashly intruded, and then, when the cry of
the kingfisher or some other bird is heard, to shout " Come
back " to the soul of the sick man and run back with it to
the house.4
It is a comparatively easy matter to save a soul which
is merely tied up to a tree or detained as a vagrant in a
pound ; but it is a far harder task to fetch it up from the
nether world, if it once gets down there. When a Buryat
shaman is called in to attend a patient, the first thing he
does is to ascertain where exactly the soul of the invalid
1 E. L. M. Ruhr, " Schetsen uit 2 R. H. Codrington, The Melan-
Borneo's Westerafdeeling," Bijdi-agen esians, p. 13S sq.
tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkun.de van ■> n A ■ . . • . „„o
»,.,,. , r ,... .... o r Codrington, op. at. p. 20d.
Nederlandsch Indie, xlvn. (1^97), p. 61 s J r
sq, 4 Codrington, op. cit. p. 146 sq.
ii RECALL OF THE SOUL 269
is ; for it may have strayed, or been stolen, or be languish-
ing in the prison of the gloomy Erlik, lord of the world
below. If it is anywhere in the neighbourhood, the
shaman soon catches and replaces it in the patient's body.
If it is far away, he searches the wide world till he finds
it, ransacking the deep woods, the lonely steppes, and the
bottom of the sea, not to be thrown off the scent even though
the cunning soul runs to the sheep-walks in the hope that its
footprints will be lost among the tracks of the sheep. But
when the whole world has been searched in vain for the
errant soul, the shaman knows that there is nothing for it
but to go down to hell and seek the lost one among the
spirits in prison. At the stern call of duty he does not
shrink from the task, though he knows that the journey is
toilsome, and that the travelling expenses, which are naturally
defrayed by the patient, are very heavy. Sometimes the
lord of the infernal regions will only agree to release the
soul on condition of receiving another in its stead, and that
one the soul of the sick man's dearest friend. If the patient
consents to the substitution, the shaman turns himself into
a hawk, pounces upon the soul of the friend as it soars from
his slumbering body in the form of a lark, and hands over
the fluttering, struggling thing to the grim warden of the
dead, who thereupon sets the soul of the sick man at liberty.
So the sick man recovers and his friend dies.1 Among the
Twana Indians of Washington Territory the descent of the
medicine-men into the nether world to rescue lost souls is
represented in pantomime before the eyes of the spectators,
who include women and children as well as men. The
surface of the ground is often broken to facilitate the descent
of the rescue party. When the adventurous band is supposed
to have reached the bottom, they journey along, cross at
least one stream, and travel till they come to the abode
of the spirits. These they surprise, and after a desperate
struggle, sustained with great ardour and a prodigious noise,
they succeed in rescuing the poor souls, and so, wrapping
them up in cloth, they make the best of their way back to
the upper world and restore the recovered souls to their
1 V. M. Mikhailovskii, "Shamanism Journal of the Anthropological Institute,
in Siberia and European Russia," xxiv. (1895), p. 69 sq.
i-jo RECALL OF THE SOUL chap.
owners, who have been seen to cry heartily for "joy 'at receiving
them back.1 ' I -
Often the abduction of a man's soul JfiB si t down to
demons. The Annamites believe that when ra iYIan meets a
demon and speaks to him, the demon inhales the man's
breath and soul.2 Fits and convulsions are generally set
down by the Chinese to the agency of certain mischievous
spirits who love to draw men's souls out of their bodies. At
Amoy the spirits who serve babies and children in this way
rejoice in the high-sounding titles of " celestial agencies
bestriding galloping horses " and " literary graduates residing
halfway up in the sky." When an infant is writhing in
convulsions, the frightened mother hastens to the roof of the
house, and, waving about a bamboo pole to which one of
the child's garments is attached, cries out several times, " My
child So-and-so, come back, return home ! " Meantime,
another inmate of the house bangs away at a gong in the
hope of attracting the attention of the strayed soul, which is
supposed to recognise the familiar garment and to slip into
it. The garment containing the soul is then placed on or
beside the child, and if the child does not die recovery is
sure to follow sooner or later.3 Similarly we saw that some
Indians catch a man's lost soul in his boots and restore it to
his body by putting his feet into them.4 When Galelareese
mariners are sailing past certain rocks or come to a river
where they never were before, they must wash their faces, for
otherwise the spirits of the rocks or the river would snatch
away their souls.0 When a Dyak is about to leave a forest
through which he has been walking alone, he never forgets
to ask the demons to give him back his soul, for it may be
that some forest-devil has carried it off. For the abduction
of a soul may take place without its owner being aware
of his loss, and it may happen either while he is awake or
1 Rev. Myron Eels, "The Twana, 3 J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious
Chemakum, and Klallam Indians of System of China, i. 243 sq.
Washington Territory," Annual Report 4 gee ab 2g2_
of the Smithsonian Institution for
1887, pt. i. p. 677 sq. 5 M. J. van Baarda, " Fabelen,
- Landes, "Conteset legendes anna- Verhalen en Overleveringen der Gale-
mites," No. 76 in Cochin-chine Frcui- lareezen, " Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land-
caise : Excursions et Reconnaissances, en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch Indie,
No. 23, p. 80. xlv. (1895), p. 509.
ii RECALL OF THE SOUL 271
asleep.1 The x^apuans of Geelvinks Bay in New Guinea are
apt to thin'. ...at the mists which sometimes hang about the
tops of ta I tr< ?s in their tropical forests envelop a spirit or
god called NarDrooi, who draws away the breath or soul of
those whom he loves, thus causing them to languish and die.
Accordingly, when a man lies sick, a friend or relation will
go to one of these mist-capped trees and endeavour to
recover the lost soul. At the foot of the tree he makes a
peculiar sound to attract the attention of the spirit, and
lights a cigar. In its curling smoke his fancy discerns the
fair and youthful form of Narbrooi himself, who, decked with
flowers, appears and informs the anxious inquirer whether
the soul of his sick friend is with him or not. If it is, the
man asks, "Has he done any wrong?" "Oh no!" the
spirit answers, " I love him, and therefore I have taken him
to myself." So the man lays down an offering at the foot
of the tree, and goes home with the soul of the sufferer in a
straw bag. Arrived at the house, he empties the bag with its
precious contents over the sick man's head, rubs his arms and
hands with ginger-root, which he had first chewed small, and
then ties a bandage round one of the patient's wrists. If the
bandage bursts, it is a sign that Narbrooi has repented of his
bargain, and is drawing away the sufferer once more to him-
self.2 In the Moluccas when a man is unwell it is thought that
some devil has carried away his soul to the tree, mountain,
or hill where he (the devil) resides. A sorcerer having
pointed out the devil's abode, the friends of the patient carry
thither cooked rice, fruit, fish, raw eggs, a hen, a chicken, a
silken robe, gold, armlets, and so forth. Having set out the
food in order they pray, saying : " We come to offer to you,
O devil, this offering of food, clothes, gold, and so on ; take
it and release the soul of the patient for whom we pray. Let
it return to his body, and he who now is sick shall be made
whole." Then they eat a little and let the hen loose as a
ransom for the soul of the patient ; also they put down the
raw eggs ; but the silken robe, the gold, and the armlets
1 Perelaer, Ethnographische Be- de Papoeas van de Geelvinksbaai van
schrijving der Dajaks, p. 26 sq. Nieuw-Guinea," Bijdragcn tot de Taal-
Land- en I 'olkenkiaide van Neerlandsch
2 "Eenigebijzonderheden betreffende Indie, ii. (1854), p. 375 sq.
272 RECALL OF THE SOUL chap.
they take home with thein. As soon as they are come to
the house they place a flat bowl containing the offerings
which have been brought back at the sick man's head, and
say to him : " Now is your soul released, and you shall fare
well and live to gray hairs on the earth." l A more modern
account from the same region describes how the friend of the
patient, after depositing his offerings on the spot where the
missing soul is supposed to be, calls out thrice the name of
the sick person, adding, " Come with me, come with me."
Then he returns, making a motion with a cloth as if he had
caught the soul in it. He must not look to right or left or
speak a word to any one he meets, but must go straight to
the patient's house. At the door he stands, and calling out
the sick person's name, asks whether he is returned. Being|
answered from within that he is returned, he enters and lays
the cloth in which he has caught the soul on the patient's
throat, saying, " Now you are returned to the house." Some-
times a substitute is provided ; a doll, dressed up in gay
clothing and tinsel, is offered to the demon in exchange for
the patient's soul, with these words, " Give us back the ugly
one which you have taken away and receive this pretty one!
instead."2 Among the Alfoors of Poso, in Central Celebes,
a wooden puppet is offered to the demon as a substitute for
the soul which he has abstracted, and the patient must touch
the puppet in order to identify himself with it. The effigy is
then hung on a bamboo pole, which is planted at the place
of sacrifice outside of the house. Here too are deposited
offerings of rice, an egg, a little wood (which is afterwards
kindled), a sherd of a broken cooking-pot, and so forth. A'
long rattan extends from the place of sacrifice to the suffererr
who grasps one end of it firmly, for along it his lost soul will
return when the devil has kindly released it. All being
ready, the priestess informs the demon that he has come to
the wrong place, and that there are no doubt much better
quarters where he could reside. Then the father of the patient,
standing beside the offerings, takes up his parable as follows : I
1 Fr. Valentyn, Oud en nieuw Oost- gelovigheden der bevolking van de
Indii'n, iii. 13 sq. eiianden Saparoea, Haroekoe, Noessa
2 Van Schmidt, " Aanteekeningen Laut, en van een gedeelte van de zuid-
nopens de zeden, gewoonten en gebrui- kust van Ceram," in Tijdschrift voor
ken, benevens de vooroordeelen en bij- Neirlands Indie, 1S43, dl. ii. 511 sqq.
ii RECALL OF THE SOUL
273
" O demon, we forgot to sacrifice to you. You have visited
us with this sickness ; will you now go away from us to
some other place ? We have made ready provisions for you
on the journey. See, here is a cooking-pot, here are rice, fire,
and a fowl. O demon, go away from us." With that the V w
priestess strews rice towards the bamboo-pole to lure back ^o^aJL A
the wandering soul ; and the fowl promised to the devil is -,
thrown in the same direction, but is instantly jerked back ^"H^
again by a string which, in a spirit of intelligent economy,
has been previously attached to its leg. The demon is now
supposed to accept the puppet, which hangs from the pole,
and to release the soul, which, sliding down the pole and
along the rattan, returns to its proper owner. And lest the
evil spirit should repent of the barter which has just been
effected, all communication with him is broken off by cutting
down the pole.1 Similarly the Mongols make up a horse of
birch-bark and a doll, and invite the demon to take the doll
instead of the patient and to ride away on the horse.2
Demons are especially feared by persons who have just
entered a new house. Hence at a house-warming among the
Alfoors of Minahassa in Celebes the priest performs a ceremony
for the purpose of restoring their souls to the inmates. He
hangs up a bag at the place of sacrifice and then goes
through a list of the gods. There are so many of them that
this takes him the whole night through without stopping.
In the morning he offers the gods an egg and some rice.
By this time the souls of the household are supposed to be
gathered in the bag. So the priest takes the bag, and
holding it on the head of the master of the house, says,
" Here you have your soul ; go (soul) to-morrow away
1 A. C. Kruijt, " Een en ander on the northern coast of New Guinea,
aangaande het geestelijk en maat- See H. Ling Roth, " Low's Natives of
schappelijk leven van den Poso-Al- Borneo," Journal of 'the Anthropological
foer," Mededeclingen van wege het Institute, xxi. (1892), p. 1 17 ; E. L. M.
Nederlandsche Zendelinggcnootschap, Kiihr, " Schetsen uit Borneo's Wester-
xxxix. (1895), PP- 5"8- afdeeling," Bijdragen lot de Taal- Land-
en Volkenkitnde van Nederlandsch-
2 Bastian, Die Seele, p. 36 sq. ; J. G. Indie, xlvii. (1897), p. 62 sq. ; F. S. A.
Gmelin, Rase durch Sioirien, ii. 359 de Clercq, " De west- en Noordkust
sq. This mode of curing sickness, by van Nederlandsch Nieuw- Guinea,"
inducing the demon to swap the soul Tijdschrift van het kon. Nederlandsch
of the patient for an effigy, is practised Aardrijksknndig Genootschap, Tweede
also by the Dyaks and by some tribes Serie, x. (1893), p. 633 sq.
VOL. I T
274 RECALL OF THE SOUL chap.
again." He then does the same, saying the same words,
to the housewife and all the other members of the family.1
Amongst the same Alfoors one way of recovering a sick
man's soul is to let down a bowl by a belt out of a window
and fish for the soul till it is caught in the bowl and hauled
up.2 Among the same people, when a priest is bringing
back a sick man's soul which he has caught in a cloth, he is
preceded by a girl holding the large leaf of a certain palm
over his head as an umbrella to keep him and the soul from
getting wet, in case it should rain ; and he is followed by a
man brandishing a sword to deter other souls from any
attempt at rescuing the captured spirit.3
In Nias, when a man dreams that a pig is fastened
under a neighbour's house, it is a sign that some one in that
house will die. They think that the sun-god is drawing
away the shadows or souls of that household from this world
of shadows to his own bright world of radiant light, and a
ceremony must needs be performed to win back these pass-
ing souls to earth. Accordingly, while it is still night, the
priest begins to drum and pray, and he continues his orisons
till about nine o'clock next morning. Then he takes his
stand at an opening in the roof through which he can
behold the sun, and spreading out a cloth waits till the
beams of the morning sun fall full upon it. In the sunbeams
he thinks the wandering souls have come back again ; so he
wraps the cloth up tightly, and quitting the opening in the
roof, hastens with his precious charge to the expectant house-
hold. Before each member of it he stops, and dipping his
fingers into the cloth takes out his or her soul and restores
it to the owner by touching the person on the forehead.4
The Samoans tell how two young wizards, passing a house
where a chief lay very sick, saw a company of gods from
the mountain sitting in the doorway. They were handing
from one to another the soul of the dying chief. It was
1 P. N. Wilken, " Bijdragen tot cle Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land-
kennis van de zeden en gewoonten der en Volkenkiuide, xviii. 523.
Alfoeren in de Minahassa, " Alededee- :J N. Graafland, De J\Iinakassa, i.
lingen van wege het ATederlandsche Zen- 327 sq.
delinggenootschap, vii. (1863), p. 146 sq. 4 Fr. Kramer, "Der Gotzendienst
Why the priest, after restoring the soul, der Niasser," Tijdschrift voor Indische
tells it to go away again, is not clear. Taal- Land- en Volkenknnde, xxxiii.
2 Riedel, " De Minahasa in 1825," (1890), p. 490 sq.
ii RECALL OF THE SOUL 275
wrapt in a leaf, and had been passed from the gods inside
the house to those sitting in the doorway. One of the gods
handed the soul to one of the wizards, taking him for a god
in the dark, for it was night. Then all the gods rose up
and went away ; but the wizard kept the chiefs soul. In
the morning some women went with a present of fine mats
to fetch a famous physician. The wizards were sitting on
the shore as the women passed, and they said to the women,
" Give us the mats and we will heal him." So they went to
the chief's house. He was very ill, his jaw hung down, and his
end seemed near. But the wizards undid the leaf and let the
soul into him again, and forthwith he brightened up and lived.1
The Battas of Sumatra believe that the soul of a living
man may transmigrate into the body of an animal. Hence,
for example, the doctor is sometimes desired to extract the
patient's soul from the body of a fowl, in which it has been
hidden away by an evil spirit.2
Sometimes the lost soul is brought back in a visible
shape. In Melanesia a woman knowing that a neighbour
was at the point of death heard a rustling in her house, as
of a moth fluttering, just at the moment when a noise of
weeping and lamentation told her that the soul was flown.
She caught the fluttering thing between her hands and ran
with it, crying out that she had caught the soul. But
though she opened her hands above the mouth of the corpse,
it did not revive.3 In Lepers' Island, one of the New
Hebrides, for ten days after a birth the father is careful not
to exert himself or the baby would suffer for it. If during
this time he goes away to any distance, he will bring back
with him on his return a little stone representing the infant's
soul. Arrived at home he cries, " Come hither," and puts
down the stone in the house. Then he waits till the child
sneezes, at which he cries, " Here it is " ; for now he knows
that the little soul has not been lost after all.4 The Salish
1 G. Turner, Samoa, p. 142 sq. p. 302.
2 J. B. Neumann, " Het Pane en '■' Codrington, "Religious Beliefs and
Bila - stroomgebied op het eiland Practices in Melanesia, "Journal of the
Sumatra," Tijdschrift van het Neder- Anthropological Institute, x. (1881), p.
landsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, 28 1; id., The Melanesians, p. 267.
Tweede Serie, dl. iii., Afdeeling, meer 4 Codrington, The Melanesians, p.
uitgebreide artikelen, No. 2 (1886), 229.
276 A1 F CALL OF THE SOUL chap.
or Flathead Indians of Oregon believe that a man's soul may
be separated for a time from his body without causing death
and without the man being aware of his loss. It is necessary,
however, that the lost soul should be soon found and restored
to its owner or he will die. The name of the man who has
lost his soul is revealed in a dream to the medicine-man,
who hastens to inform the sufferer of his loss. Generally a
number of men have sustained a like loss at the same time ;
all their names are revealed to the medicine-man, and all
employ him to recover their souls. The whole night long
these soulless men go about the village from lodge to lodge,
dancing and singing. Towards daybreak they go into a
separate lodge, which is closed up so as to be totally dark.
A small hole is then made in the roof, through which the
medicine-man, with a bunch of feathers, brushes in the souls,
in the shape of bits of bone and the like, which he receives
on a piece of matting. A fire is next kindled, by the light
of which the medicine -man sorts out the souls. First he
puts aside the souls of dead people, of which there are usually
several ; for if he were to give the soul of a dead person to
a living man, the man would die instantly. Next he picks
out the souls of all the persons present, and making them
all to sit down before him, he takes the soul of each, in the
shape of a splinter of bone, wood, or shell, and placing it on
the owner's head, pats it with many prayers and contortions
till it descends into the heart and so resumes its proper
place.1 In Amboyna the sorcerer, to recover a soul detained
by demons, plucks a branch from a tree, and waving it to and
fro as if to catch something, calls out the sick man's name.
Returning he strikes the patient over the head and body
with the branch, into which the lost soul is supposed to
have passed, and from which it returns to the patient.2 In
1 Horatio Hale, U.S. Exploring from the Report of the British Associa-
Expedition, Ethnography and Philology, tion for 1889) ; id., in Sixth Report,
p. 208 sq. Cp. Wilkes, Narrative of the etc., pp. 30, 44, 59 sq., 94 (separate
U.S. Exploring Expedition (London, reprint of the Report of the Brit. Assoc.
1845), iv. 448 sq. Similar methods for 1890) ; id., in Ninth Report, etc.,
of recovering lost souls are practised p. 462 (in Report of the Brit. Assoc.
by the Haidas, Nootkas, Shushwap, for 1894).
and other Indian tribes of British
Columbia. See Fr. Boas, in Fifth 2 Riedel, De shtik- en kroesharige
Report on the North- Western Tribes of rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p.
Canada, p. 58 sq. (separate reprint 77 sq.
ii RECALL OF THE SOUL 277
the Babar Islands offerings for evil spirits are laid at the
root of a great tree {wokiorai), from which a leaf is plucked
and pressed on the patient's forehead and breast ; the lost
soul, which is in the leaf, is thus restored to its owner.1 In
some other islands of the same seas, when a man returns ill
and speechless from the forest, it is inferred that the evil
spirits which dwell in the great trees have caught and kept
his soul. Offerings of food are therefore left under a tree
and the soul is brought home in a piece of wax.2 Amongst
the Dyaks of Sarawak the priest conjures the lost soul into
a cup, where it is seen by the uninitiated as a lock of hair,
but by the initiated as a miniature human being. This the
priest pokes back into the patient's body through an invisible
hole in his skull.3 In Nias the sick man's soul is restored
to him in the shape of a firefly, visible only to the sorcerer,
who catches it in a cloth and places it on the forehead of
the patient.4
Again, souls may be extracted from their bodies or
detained on their wanderings not only by ghosts and demons
but also by men, especially by sorcerers. In Fiji, if a criminal
refused to confess, the chief sent for a scarf with which " to
catch away the soul of the rogue." At the sight or even at
the mention of the scarf the culprit generally made a clean
breast. For if he did not, the scarf would be waved over
his head till his soul was caught in it, when it would be
carefully folded up and nailed to the end of a chief's canoe ;
and for want of his soul the criminal would pine and die.5
The sorcerers of Danger Island used to set snares for souls.
The snares were made of stout cinet, about fifteen to thirty
feet long, with loops on either side of different sizes, to suit
the different sizes of souls ; for fat souls there were large
loops, for thin souls there were small ones. When a man
was sick against whom the sorcerers had a grudge, they set
1 Riedel, op. cit. p. 356 sq. 4 Nieuwenhuisen en Rosenberg,
- Riedel, op. cit. p. 376. " Verslag omtrent het Eiland Nias,"
,! Spenser St. John, Life in the Verhandel. van het Batav. Genootsch.
Forests of the Far East,2 i. 189 ; H. van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, xxx.
Ling Roth. The Natives of Sarawak 116; Rosenberg, Der Malayische
and British North Borneo, i. 261. Archipel, p. 174; E. Modigliani,
Sometimes the souls resemble cotton Viaggio a Alas (.Milan, 1890), p. 192.
seeds (Spenser St. John, I.e.). Cp. :' Williams, Fiji and the Fijians,
id. i. 183. i. 250.
278 SNARING SOULS chap.
up these soul -snares near his house and watched for the
flight of his soul. If in the shape of a bird or an insect it
was caught in the snare the man would infallibly die.1 The
Algonquin Indians also used nets to catch souls, but only as
a measure of defence. They feared lest passing souls, which
had just quitted the bodies of dying people, should enter
their huts and carry off the souls of the inmates to deadland.
So they spread nets about their houses to catch and entangle
these ghostly intruders in the meshes." Among the Sereres
of Senegambia, when a man wishes to revenge himself on
his enemy he goes to the Fitaure (chief and priest in one),
and prevails on him by presents to conjure the soul of his
enemy into a large jar of red earthenware, which is then
deposited under a consecrated tree. The man whose soul is
shut up in the jar soon dies.3 Some of the Congo negroes
think that enchanters can get possession of human souls, and
enclosing them in tusks of ivory, sell them to the white man,
who makes them work for him in his country under the sea.
It is believed that very many of the coast labourers are men
thus obtained ; so when these people go to trade they often
look anxiously about for their dead relations. The man whose
soul is thus sold into slavery will die " in due course, if not at
the time." 4 In some parts of West Africa, indeed, wizards are
continually setting traps to catch souls that wander from their
bodies in sleep ; and when they have caught one, they tie it
up over the fire, and as it shrivels in the heat the owner
sickens. This is done, not out of any grudge towards the
sufferer, but purely as a matter of business. The wizard
does not care whose soul he has captured, and will readily
restore it to its owner if he is only paid for doing so. Some
sorcerers keep regular asylums for strayed souls, and any-
body who has lost or mislaid his own soul can always have
another one from the asylum on payment of the usual fee.
No blame whatever attaches to men who keep these private
asylums or set traps for passing souls ; it is their profession,
and in the exercise of it they are actuated by no harsh or
1 Gill, Myths and Songs of tlu 3 L. J. B. Berenger-Feraud, Les
South Pacific, p. 171 ; id., Life in the Peuplades de laSe"negavil>ie(Paris, 1879),
Southern Isles, p. 181 sqq. p. 277.
2 Relations des Jesuites, 1639, p. 44 4 W. H. Bentley, Life on the Congo
(Canadian reprint). (London, 1887), p. 71.
ii AMBUSH FOR SOULS 279
unkindly feelings. But there are also wretches who from pure
spite or for the sake of lucre set and bait traps with the
deliberate purpose of catching the soul of a particular man ;
and in the bottom of the pot, hidden by the bait, are knives
and sharp hooks which tear and rend the poor soul, either
killing it outright or mauling it so as to impair the health of
its owner when it succeeds in escaping and returning to him.
Miss Kingsley knew a Kruman who became very anxious
about his soul, because for several nights he had smelt in
his dreams the savoury smell of smoked crawfish seasoned
with red pepper. Clearly some ill-wisher had set a trap
baited with this dainty for his dream-soul, intending to do
him grievous bodily, or rather spiritual, harm ; and for the
next few nights great pains were taken to keep his soul
from straying abroad in his sleep. In the sweltering heat of
the tropical night he lay sweating and snorting under a
blanket, his nose and mouth tied up with a handkerchief to
prevent the escape of his precious soul.1
When Dyaks of the Upper Melawie are about to go out
head-hunting they take the precaution of securing the souls
of their enemies before they attempt to kill their bodies,
calculating apparently that mere bodily death will soon
follow the spiritual death, or capture, of the soul. With this
intention they clear a small space in the underwood of the
forest, and set up in the clearing one of those miniature
houses in which it is customary to deposit the ashes of the
dead. Food is placed in the little house, which, though
raised on four posts, is connected with the ground by a tin}'
inverted ladder of the sort up which spirits are believed to
swarm. When these preparations have been completed, the
leader of the expedition comes and sits down a little way
from the miniature house, and addressing the spirits of
kinsmen who had the misfortune to be beheaded by their
enemies, he says, " O ghosts of So-and-so, come speedily back
to our village. We have rice in abundance. Our trees all
bear ripe fruit. Our baskets are full to the brim. O ghosts,
come swiftly back and forget not to bring your new friends
and acquaintances with you." But by the new friends
and acquaintances of the ghosts he means the souls of the
1 Mary H. Kingsley, Travels in West Africa, p. 461 sq.
280 AMBUSH FOR SOULS chap.
enemies against whom he is about to lead the expedition.
Meantime the other warriors have hidden themselves close
by behind trees and bushes, and are listening with all their
ears. When the cry of an animal is heard in the forest, or
a humming sound seems to issue from the little house, it is
a sign that the ghosts of their friends have come, bringing
with them the souls of their enemies, which are accordingly
at their mercy. At that the lurking warriors leap forth from
their ambush, and with brandished blades hew and slash an
the souls of their foemen swarming unseen in the air. Taken)
completely by surprise, the panic-stricken souls flee in all!
directions, and are fain to hide under every leaf and stone onj
the ground. But even here their retreat is cut off. For
now the leader of the expedition is hard at work, grubbing
up with his hands every stone and leaf to right and left, and
thrusting them with feverish haste into the basket, which he
at once ties up securely. He now flatters himself that he
has the souls of the enemy safe in his possession ; and when
in the course of the expedition the heads of the foe are
severed from their bodies, he will pack them into the same
basket in which their souls are already languishing in
captivity.1
In Hawaii there were sorcerers who caught souls of living
people, shut them up in calabashes, and gave them to people
to eat. By squeezing a captured soul in their hands they
discovered the place where people had been secretly buried.2
Amongst the Canadian Indians, when a wizard wished to kill
a man, he sent out his familiar spirits, who brought him the
victim's soul in the shape of a stone or the like. The wizard
struck the soul with a sword or an axe till it bled profusely,
and as it bled the man to whom it belonged fell ill and
died.3 In Amboyna if a doctor is convinced that a patient's
soul has been carried away by a demon beyond recovery, he
1 E. L. M. Klihr, in Internationales prisoners whom they are about to
Archiv fur Ethnograpliie, ii. (1889), torture to death. See F. Grabowsky,
p. 163; id., " Schetsen uit Borneo's " Der Tod, das Begrabnis, etc., bei
Westerafdeeling," Bijdragcntot de Taal- den Dajaken," Internationales Archiv
Land-enl'olkenkundevanNederlandsch- fur Ethnographie, ii. (18S9), p. 199.
Indie, xlvii. (1897), p. 59 sq. Some 2 Bastian, Allerlei aits Volks- und
of the Dyaks of South-Eastern Borneo Menschenkimde (Berlin, 18S8), i. 1 19.
perform a ceremony for the purpose of s Relations des Jisuites, 1637, p.
extracting the souls from the bodies of 50 (Canadian reprint).
ii ABDUCTION OF SOULS 281
seeks to supply its place with a soul abstracted from another
man. For this purpose he goes by night to a house and
asks, " Who's there ? " If an inmate is incautious enough
to answer, the doctor takes up from before the door a
clod of earth, into which the soul of the person who
replied is thought to have passed. This clod the doctor
lays under the sick man's pillow, and performs certain
ceremonies by which the stolen soul is conveyed into the
patient's body. Then as he goes home the doctor fires
two shots to frighten the soul from returning to its proper
owner.1 A Karen wizard will catch the wandering soul
of a sleeper and transfer it to the body of a dead man. The
latter, therefore, comes to life as the former dies. But the
friends of the sleeper in turn engage a wizard to steal the
soul of another sleeper, who dies as the first sleeper comes to
life. In this way an indefinite succession of deaths and
resurrections is supposed to take place."
Nowhere perhaps is the art of abducting human souls
more carefully cultivated or carried to higher perfection than
in the Malay Peninsula. Here the methods by which the
wizard works his will are various, and so too are his motives.
Sometimes he desires to destroy an enemy, sometimes to win
the love of a cold or bashful beauty. Some of the charms
operate entirely without contact ; in others, the receptacle
into which the soul is to be lured has formed part of, or at
least touched, the person of the victim. Thus, to take an
instance of the latter sort of charm, the following are the
directions given for securing the soul of one whom you wish
to render distraught. Take soil from the middle of his
footprint ; wrap it up in pieces of red, black, and yellow
cloth, taking care to keep the yellow outside ; and hang it
from the centre of your mosquito curtain with parti-coloured
thread. It will then become your victim's soul. To
complete the spiritual transformation, however, it is needful
to switch the packet with a birch composed of seven leaf-ribs
from a " green " cocoa-nut. Do this seven times at sunset, at
midnight, and at sunrise, saying, " It is not earth that I switch,
1 Riedel, De slink- en kroesharige 2 E. B. Cross, "On the Karens,"
rasseu tusscken Selebes en Papua, p. Journal of the American Oriental
/8 sq. Society, iv. (1854), p. 307.
282 ABDUCTION OF SOULS chap.
but the heart of So-and-so." Then bury it in the middle
of a path where your victim is sure to step over it, and he
will unquestionably become distraught.1 Another way is to
scrape the wood of the floor where your intended victim has
been sitting, mix the scrapings with earth from his or her
footprint, and knead the whole with wax from a deserted
bees' comb into a likeness of him or her. Then fumigate the
figure with incense and beckon to the soul every night for
three nights successively by waving a cloth, while you recite
the appropriate spell.2 In the following cases the charm
takes effect without any contact whatever, whether direct or
indirect, with the victim. When the moon, just risen, looks
red above the eastern horizon, go out, and standing in the
moonlight, with the big toe of your right foot on the big toe
of your left, make a speaking-trumpet of your right hand and
recite through it the following words :
ci
OM. I loose my shaft, I loose it and the moon clouds over,
I loose it, and the sun is extinguished.
I loose it, and the stars burn dim.
But it is not the sun, moon, and stars that I shoot at,
It is the stalk of the heart of that child of the congregation,
So-and-so.
Cluck ! cluck ! soul of So-and-so, come and walk with me,
Come and sit with me,
Come and sleep and share my pillow.
Cluck ! cluck ! soul."
Repeat this thrice and after every repetition blow through
your hollow fist.3 Or you may catch the soul in your turban,
thus. Go out on the night of the full moon and the two
succeeding nights ; sit down on an ant-hill facing the moon,
burn incense, and recite the following incantation :
" I bring you a betel leaf to chew,
Dab the lime on to it, Prince Ferocious,
For Somebody, Prince Distraction's daughter, to chew.
Somebody at sunrise be distraught for love of me,
Somebody at sunset be distraught for love of me.
As you remember your parents, remember me ;
1 W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 568 2 W. W. Skeat, op. at. p. 569 sq.
sq. 3 W. W. Skeat, op. cit. p. 574 sq.
ii ABDUCTION OF SOULS 283
As you remember your house and house-ladder, remember me.
When thunder rumbles, remember me ;
When wind whistles, remember me ;
When the heavens rain, remember me ;
When cocks crow, remember me ;
When the dial-bird tells its tales, remember me ;
When you look up at the sun, remember me ;
When you look up at the moon, remember me,
For in that self-same moon I am there.
Cluck ! cluck ! soul of Somebody come hither to me.
I do not mean to let you have my soul,
Let your soul come hither to mine."
Now wave the end of your turban towards the moon
seven times each night. Go home and put it under your
pillow, and if you want to wear it in the daytime, burn
incense and say, " It is not a turban that I carry in my girdle,
but the soul of Somebody." l
Perhaps the magical ceremonies just described may help
to explain a curious rite, of immemorial antiquity, which
was performed on a very solemn occasion at Athens. On
the eve of the sailing of the fleet for Syracuse, when all
hearts beat high with hope, and visions of empire dazzled
all eyes, consternation suddenly fell on the people one May
morning when they rose and found that most of the images
of Hermes in the city had been mysteriously mutilated in
the night. The impious perpetrators of the sacrilege were
unknown, but whoever they were the priests and priestesses
solemnly cursed them according to the ancient ritual, stand-
ing with their faces to the west and shaking red cloths up
and down.2 Perhaps in these cloths they were catching the
souls of those at whom their curses were levelled, just as we
have seen that Fijian chiefs used to catch the souls of
criminals in scarves and nail them to canoes.3
The Indians of the Nass River, in British Columbia, are
impressed with a belief that a physician may swallow his
patient's soul by mistake. A doctor who is believed to have
done so is made by the other doctors to stand over the
patient, while one of them thrusts his fingers down the
1 W. W. Skeat, op. tit. p. 576 sq. As to the mutilation of the Hermae,
2 Lysias, Or. vi. 51, p. 51 ed. C. see Thucydides, vi. 27-29, 60 sq. ;
Scheibe. The passage was pointed Andocides, Or. i. 37 sqq. ; Plutarch,
out to me by my friend Mr. W. Wyse. Alcibiades, 18. 3 Above, p. 277.
284
SWALLOWING A SOUL
CHAP.
doctor's throat, another kneads him in the stomach with
his knuckles, and a third slaps him on the back. If the
soul is not in him after all, and if the same process has
been repeated upon all the doctors without success, it is
concluded that the soul must be in the head-doctor's
box. A party of doctors, therefore, waits upon him at
his house and requests him to produce his box. When he
has done so and arranged its contents on a new mat, they
take him and hold him up by the heels with his head in a
hole in the floor. In this position they wash his head, and
" any water remaining from the ablution is taken and poured
upon the sick man's head." 1 Among the Kwakiutl Indians
of British Columbia it is forbidden to pass behind the back
of a shaman while he is eating, lest the shaman should in-
advertently swallow the soul of the passer-by. When that
happens, both the shaman and the person whose soul he
has swallowed fall down in a swoon. Blood flows from the
shaman's mouth, because the soul is too large for him and
is tearing his inside. Then the clan of the person whose
soul is doing this mischief must assemble and sing the
song of the shaman. In time the suffering sorcerer
vomits out the soul, which he exhibits in the shape of a
small bloody ball in the open palms of his hands. He
restores it to its owner, who is lying prostrate on a mat, by
throwing it at him and then blowing on his head. The
man whose soul was swallowed has very naturally to pay
for the damage he did to the shaman as well as for his
own cure."
1 J. B. McCullagh in The Church
Missionary Gleaner, xiv. No. 164
(August 1887), p. 91. The same
account is copied from the " North
Star" (Sitka, Alaska, December 1888),
in Journal of American Folk-lore, ii.
(1889), p. 74 sq. Mr. McCulIagh's ac-
count (which is closely followed in the
text) of the latter part of the custom is
not quite clear. It would seem that fail-
ing to find the soul in the head-doctor's
box it occurs to them that he may have
swallowed it, as the other doctors were
at first supposed to have done. With
a view of testing this hypothesis they
hold him up by the heels to empty out
the soul ; and as the water with which
his head is washed may possibly contain
the missing soul, it is poured on the
patient's head to restore the soul to
him. We have already seen that the
recovered soul is often conveyed into
the sick person's head.
2 Fr. Boas, in Eleventh Report on
the North- Western Tribes of Canada,
p. 571 [Report of the British Associa-
tion for 1896). For other examples of
the capture or recovery of lost, stolen, and
strayed souls, in addition to those which
have been cited in the preceding pages,
see Riedel, " De Topantunuasu of oor-
spronkelijke volksstammen van Central
II
THE SHADOW-SOUL
>S5
But the spiritual dangers I have enumerated are not the
only ones which beset the savage. Often he regards his
shadow or reflection as his soul, or at all events as a vital
part of himself, and as such it is necessarily a source of
danger to him. For if it is trampled upon, struck, or
stabbed, he will feel the injury as if it were done to his
person ; and if it is detached from him entirely (as he
believes that it may be) he will die. In the island of Wetar
there are magicians who can make a man ill by stabbing
his shadow with a pike or hacking it with a sword.1 After
Sankara had destroyed the Buddhists in India, it is said
that he journeyed to Nepaul, where he had some difference
of opinion with the Grand Lama. To prove his super-
natural powers, he soared into the air. But as he mounted up,
the Grand Lama, perceiving his shadow swaying and waver-
ing on the ground, struck his knife into it and down fell
Sankara and broke his neck.2 In the Babar Islands the
Selebes," Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land-
en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-
Indie, xxxv. (1886), p. 93 ; Neumann,
" Het Pane en Bilastroom-gebeid,"
Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch Aar-
drijkskundig Genootschap, Tweede Serie,
dl. iii., Afdeeling, meer uitgebreide
artikelen, No. 2 (1886), p. 300 sq. ;
J. L. van der Toorn, " Het animisme
bei den Minangkabauer," Bijdragen tot
de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch Indie, xxxix. (1890), p.
51 sq. ; H. Ris, " De onderafdeeling
Klein Mandailing Oeloe en Pabantan,"
Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volken-
kunde van Arederlandsch Indie, xlvi.
(1896), p. 529; H. Ling Roth, The
Natives of Sarawak and British
North Borneo, i. 274 ; W. W. Skeat,
Malay Magic, pp. 49-51, 452-455> 57°
sqq. ; Journal of the Anthropological
Institute, xxiv. (1895), pp. 128, 287 ;
Priklonski, "Die Jakuten," in Bastian's
Alter lei aus Volks- und Mensclienkunde,
ii. 218 sq. ; Bastian, Die Volker des
ostlicheu Asieu, ii. 388, iii. 236 ; id.,
Vblkerstamme a/n Brahmaputra, p.
23; id., " Hiigelstamme Assam's,"
Verhandlungen der Berlin. Gesell. fur
Anthropol. Ethnol. und Urgeschichte,
1SS1, p. 156; Shway Yoe, The
Burma/1, i. 283 sq., ii. 10 1 sq. ;
Sproat, Scenes and Studies of Savage
Life, p. 214 ; Doolittle, Social Life of
the Chinese, p. no sq. (ed. Paxton
Hood) ; T. Williams, Fiji and the
Fijians, i. 242 ; E. B. Cross, " On
the Karens, "Journal of the American
Oriental Society, iv. (1854), p. 309 sq. ;
A. W. Howitt, "On some Australian
Beliefs," in Joum. Anthrop. Inst. xiii.
(1884), p. 187.W. ; id., " On Australian
Medicine Men," Joum. Anthrop. Inst.
xvi. (1887), p. 41 ; E. P. Houghton,
" On the Land Dayaks of Upper Sara-
wak," Memoirs of the Anthropological
Society of London, iii. (1870), p. 196
sq. ; L. Dahle, " Sikidy and Vintana,"
Antananarivo Annual and Madagascar
Annual, xi. (1887), p. 320 sq. ; C.
Leemius, De Lapponibus Finmarchiae
eor unique lingua, vita et religioue pris-
tina commentatio (Copenhagen, 1767),
p. 416 sq. My friend W. Robertson
Smith suggested to me that the practice
of hunting souls, which is denounced
in Ezekiel xiii. 17 sqq., may have
been akin to those described in the
text.
1 Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige
rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p.
440.
2 Bastian, Die Volker des ostlicheu
Asien, v. 455.
286 THE SHADOW-SOUL chap.
demons get power over a man's soul by holding fast his
shadow, or by striking and wounding it.1 The natives of
Nias tremble at the sight of a rainbow, because they think
it is a net spread by a powerful spirit to catch their
souls." In the Banks Islands, Melanesia, there are certain
stones of a remarkably long shape which go by the name of
tamate gangan or " eating ghosts," because certain powerful
and dangerous ghosts are believed to lodge in them. If a
man's shadow falls on one of these stones, the ghost will
draw his soul out from him, so that he will die. Such stones,
therefore, are set in a house to guard it ; and a messenger
sent to a house by the absent owner will call out the name
of the sender, lest the watchful ghost in the stone should
fancy that he came with evil intent and should do him a
mischief.8 In Florida, one of the Solomon Islands, there
are places sacred to ghosts, some in the village, some in the
gardens, and some in the bush. No man would pass one
of these places when the sun was so low as to cast his
shadow into it, for then the ghost would draw it from him.4
The Indian tribes of the Lower Fraser River believe that
man has four souls, of which the shadow is one, though not
the principal, and that sickness is caused by the absence of one
of the souls. Hence no one will let his shadow fall on a sick
shaman, lest the latter should purloin it to replace his own lost
soul.5 At a funeral in China, when the lid is about to be
placed on the coffin, most of the bystanders, with the
exception of the nearest kin, retire a few steps or even retreat
to another room, for a person's health is believed to be en-
dangered by allowing his shadow to be enclosed in a coffin.
And when the coffin is about to be lowered into the grave
most of the spectators recoil to a little distance lest their
shadows should fall into the grave and harm should thus be
done to their persons. The geomancer and his assistants stand
on the side of the grave which is turned away from the sun ;
and the grave-diggers and coffin-bearers attach their shadows
firmly to their persons by tying a strip of cloth tightly round
1 Riedel, op. cit. p. 340. 4 Codrington, op. cit. p. 176.
2 E. Modigliani, Viaggio a Nias, p. 5 Fr. Boas, in Ninth Report on the
620, cp. p. 624. North-Western Tribes of Canada, p.
3 Codrington, The Melanesians, p. 461 sq. {Report of the British Associa-
184. tion for 1894).
II
THE SHADOW-SOUL
287
their waists T When members of some Victorian tribes were
performing magical ceremonies for the purpose of bringing
disease and misfortune on their enemies, they took care not
to let their shadows fall on the object by which, the evil
influence was supposed to be wafted to the foe.2 In Darfur
people think that they can do an enemy to death by burying
a certain root in the earth on the spot where the shadow of
his head happens to fall. The man whose shadow is thus
tampered with loses consciousness at once and will die if
the proper antidote be not admininistered. In like manner
they can paralyse any limb, as a hand or leg, by planting a
particular root in the earth in the shadow of the limb they
desire to maim.3 Nor is it human beings alone who are
thus liable to be injured by means of their shadows.
Animals are to some extent in the same predicament. A
small snail, which frequents the neighbourhood of the lime-
stone hills in Perak, is believed to suck the blood of cattle
through their shadows ; hence the beasts grow lean and
sometimes die from loss of blood.4 The ancients believed
that in Arabia, if a hyaena trod on a man's shadow, it de-
prived him of the power of speech and motion ; and that if
a dog, standing on a roof in the moonlight, cast a shadow
on the ground and a hyaena trod on it, the dog would fall
down as if dragged with a rope.'0 Clearly in these cases
the shadow, if not equivalent to the soul, is at least regarded
as a living part of the man or the animal, so that injury
done to the shadow is felt by the person or animal as if it
were done to his body.
Conversely, if the shadow is a vital part of a man, it
may under certain circumstances be as hazardous to come
into contact with a person's shadow as it would be to
come into contact with the person himself. In the Punjaub
1 J. J. M. de Groot, The Religions
System of China, i. 94, 210 sq.
2 J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines ,
P- 54-
3 Mohammed Ebn - Omar El-
Tounsy, Voyage an Darfour, traduit
de l'Arabe par le Dr. Perron (Paris,
1845), p. 347.
4 W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 306.
5 [Aristotle] Mirab. Auscult. 145
(157); Geoponica, xv. 1. In the latter
passage, for KaTayei iavrrjv we must read
Kardyei avrov, an emendation necessi-
tated by the context, and confirmed by
the passage of Damlri quoted and
translated by Bochart, Hierozoicon, i.
col. 833, "cum adlunam calcat umbram
cam's, qui supra tectum est, cam's ad
earn [scil. hyaenam] decidit, et ea ilium
devorat." Cp. W. Robertson Smith,
The Religion of the Semites,2 p. 129.
283
THE SHADOW-SOUL
CHAP.
some people believe that if the shadow of a pregnant woman
fell on a snake, it would blind the creature instantly.1
Hence the savage makes it a rule to shun the shadow of
certain persons whom for various reasons he regards as
sources of dangerous influence. Amongst the dangerous
classes he commonly ranks mourners and women in general,
but especially his mother-in-law. The Shushwap Indians of
British Columbia think that the shadow of a mourner falling
upon a person would make him sick." Amongst the Kurnai
tribe of Victoria novices at initiation were cautioned not to
let a woman's shadow fall across them, as this would make
them thin, lazy, and stupid.3 An Australian native is said
to have once nearly died of fright because the shadow of
his mother-in-law fell on his legs as he lay asleep under a
tree.4 The awe and dread with which the untutored savage
contemplates his mother-in-law are amongst the most
familiar facts of anthropology. In New Britain the native
imagination fails to conceive the extent and nature of the
calamities which would result from a man's accidentally
speaking to his wife's mother ; suicide of one or both would
probably be the only course open to them. The most
solemn form of oath a New Briton can take is,- " Sir, if I
am not telling the truth, I hope I may shake hands with
my mother-in-law." 5 At Vanua Lava in the Banks' Islands,
a man would not so much as follow his mother-in-law along
the beach until the rising tide had washed out her footprints
in the sand.0 In Uganda a man may not see his mother-in-
law or speak to her face to face. If he wishes to hold any
communication with her, it must be done by a third person,
or through a wall or closed door. Were he to break this
rule he would be sure to be seized with shaking of the
1 Panjab Notes and Queries, i. p.
14, § 122.
2 Fr. Boas, in Sixth Report on the
North-Western Tribes of Canada, pp.
92, 94 (separate reprint from the
Report of the British Association for
1890) ; compare id. , in Seventh Re-
port, etc., p. 13 (separate reprint from
the Rep. Brit. Assoc, for 1S91).
:i A. W. Howitt, "The Jeraeil, or
Initiation Ceremonies of the Kurnai
Tribe,'' Journal of the Anthropological
Institute, xiv. (1885), p. 3 1 6.
i Miss Mary E. B. Howitt, Folk-
lore and Legends of some Victorian
Tribes (in manuscript).
5 H. H. Romily and Rev. George
Brown, in Proceedings of the Royal
Geographical Society, N.S., ix. (18S7),
pp. 9, 17.
6 R. H. Codrington, The Melan-
esians, p. 43.
n THE SHADOW-SOUL 289
hands and general debility.1 To avoid meeting his mother-
in-law face to face a very desperate Apache Indian, one of
the bravest of the brave, has been seen to clamber along the
brink of a precipice at the risk of his life, hanging on to
rocks from which had he fallen he would have been dashed
to pieces or at least have broken several of his limbs.2
Where the shadow is regarded as so intimately bound
up with the life of the man that its loss entails debility
or death, it is natural to expect that its diminution should
be regarded with solicitude and apprehension, as betokening
a corresponding decrease in the vital energy of its owner.
An elegant Greek rhetorician has compared the man who
lives only for fame to one who should set all his heart on his
shadow, puffed up and boastful when it lengthened, sad and
dejected when it shortened, wasting and pining away when
it dwindled to nothing. The spirits of such an one, he goes
on, would necessarily be volatile, since they must rise or
fall with every passing hour of the day. In the morning,
when the level sun, just risen above the eastern horizon,
stretched out his shadow to enormous length, rivalling the
shadows cast by the cypresses and the towers on the city
wall, how blithe and exultant he would be, fancying that in
stature he had become a match for the fabled giants of old ;
with what a lofty port he would then strut and show himself
in the streets and the market-place and wherever men con-
gregated, that he might be seen and admired of all. But
as the day wore on, his countenance would change and he
would slink back crestfallen to his house. At noon, when
his once towering shadow had shrunk to his feet, he would
shut himself up and refuse to stir abroad, ashamed to look
his fellow-townsmen in the face ; but in the afternoon his
drooping spirits would revive, and as the day declined his
joy and pride would swell again with the length of the
evening shadows.3 The rhetorician who thus sought to
expose the vanity of fame as an object of human ambition
by likening it to an ever-changing shadow, little dreamed
that in real life there were men who set almost as much store
1 From a series of notes on the - J. G. Bourke, On the Border
Waganda sent me by my friend the ivith Crook, p. 132.
Rev. John Roscoe, missionary to 3 Dio Chrysostom, Or. lxvii. vol.
Uganda. ii. p. 230, ed. Dindorf.
VOL. I U
290
THE SHADOIV-SOUL
CHAP.
by their shadows as the fool whom he had conjured up in his
imagination to point a moral. So hard is it for the straining
wings of fancy to outstrip the folly of mankind. In Amboyna
and Uliase, two islands near the equator, where necessarily
there is little or no shadow cast at noon, the people make it a
rule not to go out of the house at mid-day, because they fancy
that by doing so a man may lose the shadow of his soul.1
The Mangaians tell of a mighty warrior, Tukaitawa, whose
strength waxed and waned with the length of his shadow.
In the morning, when his shadow fell longest, his strength
was greatest ; but as the shadow shortened towards noon
his strength ebbed with it, till exactly at noon it reached its
lowest point ; then, as the shadow stretched out in the after-
noon, his strength returned. A certain hero discovered the
secret of Tukaitawa's strength and slew him at noon.2 It is
possible that even in lands outside the tropics the observa-
tion of the diminished shadow at noon may have contributed,
even if it did not give rise, to the superstitious dread with
which that hour has been viewed by many peoples, as by
the Greeks, ancient and modern, the Bretons, the Russians,
and the Roumanians of Transylvania.3 In this observation,
too, we may perhaps detect the reason why noon was chosen
by the Greeks as the hour for sacrificing to the shadowless
dead.4 The loss of the shadow, real or apparent, has often
been regarded as a cause or precursor of death. Whoever
entered the sanctuary of Zeus on Mount Lycaeus in Arcadia
was believed to lose his shadow and to die within the year.5
In Lower Austria on the evening of St. Sylvester's day —
the last day of the year — the company seated round the
table mark whose shadow is not cast on the wall, and believe
that the seemingly shadowless person will die next year.
1 Riedel, De shiik- en kroeskarige
rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p.
61.
- Gill, Myths and Songs of the South
Pacific, p. 284 sqq.
3 Theocritus, i. 1 5 sqq. ; Philostratus,
Heroic, i. 3 ; Porphyry, Dc antro nym-
pkarum, 26 ; Urexler, s.v. " Meridi-
anus daemon," in Roscher's Lexikon
dergriech. und rom.Mythologie, ii. 2832
sqq. ; Bernard Schmidt, Das Volksleben
der Neugriechen, pp. 94 sqq., \\<$ sq. ;
Georgeakis et Pineau, Folk-lore de Les-
bos, p. 342 ; De Nore, Coutumes,
mythes, et traditions des provinces de
Prance, p. 214 sq. ; Grimm, Deutsche
Mythologies ii. 972 ; Rochholz, Deut-
scher Glaube und Branch, i. 62 sqq. ;
E. Gerard, The Land beyond the Forest,
i- 331-
4 Schol. on Arist >hai ;s, Pan. 293.
0 Pausanias, viii. 38. 6 ; Polybius,
xvi. 12. 7 ; Plutarch, Quaest. Grace.
39-
ii THE SHADOW-SOUL 291
Similar presages are drawn in Germany both on St.
Sylvester's day and on Christmas Eve.1 The Galelareese
fancy that if a child resembles his father, they will not both
live long ; for the child has taken away his father's like-
ness or shadow, and consequently the father must soon
die.2
I Nowhere, perhaps, does the equivalence of the shadow
to the life or soul come out more clearly than in some
customs practised to this day in South-Eastern Europe. In
modern Greece, when the foundation of a new building is
being laid, it is the custom to kill a cock, a ram, or a lamb,
and to let its blood flow on the foundation-stone, under
which the animal is afterwards buried. The object of the
sacrifice is to give strength and stability to the building.
But sometimes, instead of killing an animal, the builder
entices a man to the foundation-stone, secretly measures his
body, or a part of it, or his shadow, and buries the measure
under the foundation-stone ; or he lays the foundation-stone
upon the man's shadow. It is believed that the man will
die within the year.3 In the island of Lesbos it is deemed
enough if the builder merely casts a stone at the shadow of
a passer-by ; the man whose shadow is thus struck will die,
but the building will be solid.4 A Bulgarian mason measures
the shadow of a man with a string, places the string in a
box, and then builds the box into the wall of the edifice.
Within forty days thereafter the man whose shadow was
measured will be dead and his soul will be in the box
beside the string ; but often it will come forth and appear
in its former shape to persons who were born on a Saturday.
If a Bulgarian builder cannot obtain a human shadow for
this purpose, he will content himself with measuring the
shadow of the first animal that comes that way.5 The
Roumanians of Transylvania think that he whose shadow is
1 Th. Vernaleken, Mythen itnd Indie, xlv. (1895), P- 459-
Brauche des Volkes in Oesterreich, 3 B. Schmidt, Das Volksleben der
p. 341 ; Reinsberg-Diinngsfeld, Das Neugriechm p. lg6 s„
festliche Jakr, p. 401 ; Wuttke, Der ° r i
deutsche Volksaberglaube? § 314. 4 Georgeakis et Pineau, Folk-lore de
2 M. J. vai Baarda, " Fabelen, Lesbos, p. 346 sq.
Verhalen en Overleveringen der Gale- 5 A. Strausz, Die Bulgaren (Leipsic,
• l.ueezen," Bijdragen rot de Taal- Land- 1898), p. 199; Ralston, Songs of the
en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch - Russian People, p. 127.
292 THE REFLECTION-SOUL chat.
thus immured will die within forty days ; so persons passing
by a building which is in course of erection may hear a
warning cry, " Beware lest they take thy shadow ! " Not
lone asro there were still shadow-traders whose business it
was to provide architects with the shadows necessary for
securing their walls.1 In these cases the measure of the
shadow is looked on as equivalent to the shadow itself, and
to bury it is to bury the life or soul of the man, who,
deprived of it, must die. Thus the custom is a substitute
for the old practice of immuring a living person in the walls,
or crushing him under the foundation-stone of a new
building, in order to give strength and durability to the
i ■
structure.
As some peoples believe a man's soul to be in his
shadow, so other (or the same) peoples believe it to be in
his reflection in water or a mirror. Thus " the Andamanese
do not regard their shadows but their reflections (in any
mirror) as their souls." 3 According to one account, some
of the Fijians thought that man has two souls, a light one
and a dark one ; the dark one goes to Hades, the light one
is his reflection in water or a mirror.4 When the Motumotu
of New Guinea first saw their likenesses in a looking-glass
they thought that their reflections were their souls.5 The
reflection-soul, being external to the man, is exposed to
much the same dangers as the shadow-soul. Among the
1 W. Schmidt, Das Jahr tmd seine this reported belief in a bright soul
Tage in Meinung tend Branch der Ro- and a dark soul " is one of Williams'
manen Siebenbiirgens, p. 27 ; E. absurdities. I inquired into it on the
Gerard, The Land beyond the Forest, island where he was, and found that
ii. 17 sq. Compare F. S. Krauss, there was no such belief. He took
Volksglanbe und religioser Branch der the word for 'shadow,' which is a
Siidslaven, p. 161. reduplication of yalo, the word for
2 As to this custom, see E. B. Tylor, soul, as meaning the dark soul. But
Primitive Culture,2 i. 104 sqq. ; F. yaloyalo does not mean the soul at all.
Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, pp. 284- It is not part of a man as his soul is.
296; F. S. Krauss, "Der Bauopfer This is made certain by the fact that
bei den Siidslaven," Mittheilungen der it does not take the possessive suffix
Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in IVien, yalo-na = his soul ; but nona yaloyalo =
xvii. (1887), pp. 16-24; P- Sartori, his shadow. This settles the question
" Ueber das Bauopfer," Zeitschrift fiir beyond dispute. If yaloyalo were any
Ethnologie, xxx. (1898), pp. 1-54. kind of soul, the possessive form would
3 E. H. Mann, Aboriginal Inhabit- be yaloyalona " (letter dated August
ants of the Andaman Islands, p. 94. 26th, 1898).
4 Williams, Fiji, i. 241. However, 6 James Chalmers, Pioneering in
Mr. Lorimer Fison writes to me that Neiu Guinea (London, 1887), p. 170.
II
THE REFLECTION-SOUL
293
Galelareese, half-grown lads and girls may not look at them-
selves in a mirror ; for they say that the mirror takes away
their bloom and leaves them ugly.1 And as the shadow
may be stabbed, so may the reflection. Hence an Aztec
mode of keeping sorcerers from the house was to leave a
yessel of water with a knife in it behind the door. When
a sorcerer entered he was so much alarmed at seeing his
reflection in the water transfixed by a knife that he turned
and fled.2 The Zulus will not look into a dark pool because
they think there is a beast in it which will take away their
reflections, so that they die.3 The Basutos say that
crocodiles have the power of thus killing a man by dragging
his reflection under water.4 In Saddle Island, Melanesia,
there is a pool " into which if any one looks he dies ; the
malignant spirit takes hold upon his life by means of his
reflection on the water." 5
We can now understand why it was a maxim both in
jancient India and ancient Greece not to look at one's
/reflection in water, and why the Greeks regarded it as an
omen of death if a man dreamed of seeing himself so
reflected. |J They feared that the water- spirits would drag
'the person's reflection or soul under water, leaving him soul-
less to die. This was probably the origin of the classical
^ story of the beautiful Narcissus, who languished and died
in consequence of seeing his reflection in the water. The
explanation that he died for love of his own fair image was
probably devised later, after the old meaning of the story
was forgotten. The same ancient belief lingers, in a faded
form, in the English superstition that whoever sees a
water-fairy must pine and die.
1 M. J. van Baarda, " Fabelen,
Verhalen en Overleveringen der Gale-
lareezen," Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land-
en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-
Indie, xlv. (1895), P- 462.
2 Sahagun, Histoire g'ene'rale dcs
c hoses de la Nonvelle - Espagne (Paris,
1880), p. 314. The Chinese hang
brass mirrors over the idols in their
houses, because it is thought that evil
spirits entering the house and seeing
themselves in the mirrors will be
scared away {China Review, ii. 164).
3 Callaway, Nursery Tales, Tradi-
tions, and Jlistories of the Zulus, p.
342.
4 Arbousset et Daumas, 'Voyage
d'' exploration au Nord-est de la Colonic
du Cap de Bonne-Espe'rance, p. 12.
5 Codrington, " Religious Beliefs
and Practices in Melanesia," Journ.
Anthrop. Inst. x. ( 18S1), p. 313 ; id.,
The Melanesians, p. 186.
0 Fragment a Philosoph. Graec. ed.
Mullach, i. 510; Artemidorus, Onirocr.
ii. 7 ! Laws of Mann, iv. 38.
294 THE REFLECTION-SOUL chap.
•• Alas, the moon should ever beam
To show what man should never see ! —
I saw a maiden on a stream,
And fair was she !
•■ I staid to watch, a little space,
Her parted lips if she would sing ;
The waters closed above her face
With many a ring.
•v I know my life will fade away,
I know that I must vainly pine,
For I am made of mortal clay,
But she's divine ! "
Further, we can now explain the widespread custom of
covering up mirrors or turning them to the wall after a
death has taken place in the house. It is feared that the
soul, projected out of the person in the shape of his reflec-
tion in the mirror, may be carried off by the ghost of the
departed, which is commonly supposed to linger about the
house till the burial. The custom is thus exactly parallel
to the Aru custom of not sleeping in a house after a death
for fear that the soul, projected out of the body in a dream,
may meet the ghost and be carried off by it.1 In Olden-
burg it is thought that if a person sees his image in a
mirror after a death he will die himself. So all the mirrors
in the house are covered up with white cloth.2 In some
parts of Germany and Belgium after a death not only the
mirrors but everything that shines or glitters (windows,
clocks, etc.) is covered up,3 doubtless because they might
reflect a person's image. The same custom of covering up
mirrors or turning them to the wall after a death prevails
in England, Scotland, and Madagascar.4 The Suni
Mohammedans of Bombay cover with a cloth the mirror
in the room of a dying man and do not remove it until the
corpse is carried out for burial. They also cover the
looking-glasses in their bedrooms before retiring to rest at
1 See above, p. 256. 4 Folk-lore Journal, iii. 281 ; Dyer,
•> -M7 ^1 7~v j / 7 t- ii i English Folk-lore, p. 109 ; J. Napier,
2 Wuttke, Der deutsche I olksaber- „ f, , ~ , ' f. . . k ,- r ■ *i ,
, . ., , rolk-lore, or Superstitious Beliefs in the
glaube,- p. 429 «?.. § 726. mst of ^^ p_ 6o. ^ EUiSj
3 Wuttke, I.e. ; E. Monseur, Le History of Madagascar, i. 238 ; Revue
Folklore JVallon, p. 40. d Ethnographic, v. 215.
ii SOUL IN PORTRAIT 295
night.1 The reason why sick people should not see them-
selves in a mirror, and why the mirror in a sick-room is
therefore covered up,2 is also plain ; in time of sickness,
when the soul might take flight so easily, it is particularly
dangerous to project the soul out of the body by means of
the reflection in a mirror. The rule is therefore precisely
parallel to the rule observed by some peoples of not allowing
sick people to sleep ; 3 for in sleep the soul is projected out
of the body, and there is always a risk that it may not
return. " In the opinion of the Raskolniks a mirror is an
accursed thing, invented by the devil," 4 perhaps on account
of the mirror's supposed power of drawing out the soul in
the reflection and so facilitating its capture.
As with shadows and reflections, so with portraits ; they
are often believed to contain the soul of the person por-
trayed. People who hold this belief are naturally loth to
have their likenesses taken ; for if the portrait is the soul, or
at least a vital part of the person portrayed, whoever
possesses the portrait will be able to exercise a fatal influence
over the original of it. Mortal terror was depicted on the
faces of the Battas upon whom von Bremer turned the lens
of his camera ; they thought he wished to carry off their
shadows or spirits in a little box.5 The Canelos Indians of
South America think that their soul is carried away in their
picture. Two of them having been photographed were so
alarmed that they came back next day on purpose to ask if
it were really true that their souls had been taken away.6
1 Panjab Notes and Queries, ii. p. Mexican custom of masking and veiling
I09> § 906. the images of the gods so long as the
2 Grohmann, Aberglduben uuet Ce- king was sick (Brasseur de Bourbourg,
brauche aus Bdhmen und Mahren, p. Histoire des nations civilisees dn Mex-
151, § 1097; Folk-lore Journal, vi. iqne et de I'A nUriqne-Centrale, iii. 571
(iSSS), p. 145 sq. ; Panjab Notes and sq.) may perhaps have been intended to
Queries, ii. p. 61, § 37S. prevent the images from drawing away
3 J. G. Frazer, "On certain burial the king's soul.
customs as illustrative of the primitive * Ralston, Songs of the Russian
theory of the soul," Journ. Anthrop. People, p. 117. The objection, how-
hi st. xv. (1S86), p. 82 sqq. Among ever, may be merely Puritanical,
the heathen Arabs, when a man had W. Robertson Smith informed me that
been stung by a scorpion, he was kept the peculiarities of the Raskolniks are
from sleeping for seven days, during largely due to exaggerated Puritanism,
which he had to wear a woman's brace- •"' Yon Bremer, Resuch bei den Kan-
lets and earrings (Rasmussen, Addita- nibalen Sumatras (Wurzburg, 1S94),
menta ad historiam Arahum ante Islam- p. 195.
ismum, p. 65, compare p. 69). The old ,; A. Simson, " Notes on the Jivaros
296 SOUL IN PORTRAIT chap.
When Joseph Thomson attempted to photograph some of the
Wa-teita in Eastern Africa, they imagined that he was a
magician trying to obtain possession of their souls, and that if
he got their likenesses they themselves would be entirely
at his mercy.1 An Indian, whose portrait the Prince of
Wied wished to get, refused to let himself be drawn, because
he believed it would cause his death.2 The Mandans also
thought that they would soon die if their portrait was in
the hands of another ; they wished at least to have the
artist's picture as a kind of hostage or guarantee.3 The
Dacotas hold that every man has several wanagi or
" apparitions," of which after death one remains at the
grave, while another goes to the place of the departed.
For many years no Yankton Dacota would consent to have
his picture taken lest one of his " apparitions " should
remain after death in the picture instead of going to the
spirit-land.4 The Araucanians of Chile are unwilling to
have their portraits drawn, for they believe that he who has
their portraits in his possession could, by means of magic,
injure or destroy themselves.0 Until the reign of the)
present King of Siam no Siamese coins were ever stamped
with the image of the king, " for at that time there was a
strong prejudice against the making of portraits in any)
medium. Europeans who travel into the jungle have, even
at the present time, only to point a camera at a crowd in
order to procure its instant dispersion. When a copy of the
face of a person is made and taken away from him, a por-
tion of his life goes with the picture. Unless the sovereign
had been blessed with the years of a Methusaleh he could
scarcely have permitted his life to be distributed in small
pieces together with the coins of the realm." (1 When Dr.
Catat and some companions were exploring the Bara
and Canelos Indians, n Journ. Anlhrof. 3 Ibid. ii. 166.
Inst. ix. (1SS0), p. 392. Similar notions * J. Owen Dorsey, "A Study of
are entertained by the Aymara Indians Siouan Cults," Eleventh Annual Report
of Bolivia and Peru (D. Forbes, in of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washing-
Journal of the Ethnological Society of ton, 1894), p. 484.
London, ii. (1S70), p. 236). 5 E. R. Smith, The Araucanians
1 T- Thomson, Through Masai Land, (London, 1855), p. 222.
p. 86. ° E. Young, The Kingdom of the
- Maximilian Prinz zu Wied, Reisc Yellozv Robe (Westminster, 1S98),
in das Innere Nord- America, i. 417. p. 140.
n SOUL IN PORTRAIT 297
country on the west coast of Madagascar the people
suddenly became hostile. The day before the travellers,
not without difficulty, had photographed the royal family,
and now found themselves accused of taking the souls of
the natives for the purpose of selling them when they
returned to France. Denial was vain ; in compliance with
the custom of the country they were obliged to catch the
souls, which were then put into a basket and ordered by Dr.
Catat to return to their respective owners.1 The same belief
still lingers in various parts of Europe. Not very many years
ago some old women in the Greek island of Carpathus were
very angry at having their likenesses drawn, thinking that in
consequence they would pine and die.2 It is a German
superstition that if you have your portrait painted, you will
die.° Some people in Russia object to having their silhouettes
taken, fearing that if this is done they will die before the
year is out.4 An artist once vainly attempted to sketch a
gypsy girl. " I won't have her drawed out," said the girl's
aunt. " I told her I'd make her scrawl the earth before me,
if ever she let herself be drawed out again." " Why, what
harm can there be ? " "I know there's a fiz (a charm) in it.
There was my youngest, that the gorja drawed out on New-
market Heath, she never held her head up after, but wasted
away, and died, and she's buried in March churchyard." 5
There are persons in the West of Scotland "who refuse to
have their likenesses taken lest it prove unlucky ; and give
as instances the cases of several of their friends who never
had a day's health after being photographed." °
§ 3. Royal and Priestly Taboos (continued)
So much for the primitive conceptions of the soul and
the dangers to which it is exposed. These conceptions are
1 E. Clodd, in Folk-lore, vi. (1895), '' F- H. Groome, In Gipsy Tents
p. 73 sq., referring to The Times, 24th (Edinburgh, 18S0), p. 337 sq.
March 1891.
- "A far-off Greek Island." Thick- ° James Napier, Folk-lore, or
wood's Magazine, February 18S6, p. Superstitious Beliefs in the West of
235- Scotland, p. 142. For more examples
3 J. A. E. Kohler, Volksbrauch, of the same sort, see R. Andree,
etc., im Voigtlande, p. 423. Ethnographische Parallelen und J'er-
4 Ralston, Song? of the Russian gleiche, Neue Folge (Leipsic, 1S89),
People, p. 117. p. 18 sqq.
298 ROYAL TABOOS chap.
not limited to one people or country ; with variations of
detail they are found all over the world, and survive, as we
have seen, in modern Europe. Beliefs so deep-seated and
so widespread must necessarily have contributed to shape
the mould in which the early kingship was cast. For if
every person was at such pains to save his own soul from
the perils which threatened it from so many sides, how
much more carefully must he have been guarded upon
whose life hung the welfare and even the existence of the
whole people, and whom therefore it was the common
interest of all to preserve ? Therefore we should expect to
find the king's life protected by a system of precautions or
safeguards still more numerous and minute than those
which in primitive society every man adopts for the safety
of his own soul. Now in point of fact the life of the
early kings is regulated, as we have seen and shall see
more fully presently, by a very exact code of rules. May
we not then conjecture that these rules are in fact the
very safeguards which we should expect to find adopted for
the protection of the king's life ? An examination of the
rules themselves confirms this conjecture. For from this
it appears that some of the rules observed by the kings are
identical with those observed by private persons out of
regard for the safety of their souls ; and even of those
which seem peculiar to the king, many, if not all, are
most readily explained on the hypothesis that they are
nothing but safeguards or lifeguards of the king. I
will now enumerate some of these royal rules or taboos,
offering on each of them such comments and explana-
tions as may serve to set the original intention of the rule
in its proper light.
As the object of the royal taboos is to isolate the king
from all sources of danger, their general effect is to compel
him to live in a state of seclusion, more or less complete,
according to the number and stringency of the rules he
observes. Now of all sources of danger none are more
dreaded by the savage than magic and witchcraft, and he
suspects all strangers of practising these black arts. To
guard against the baneful influence exerted voluntarily or
involuntarily by strangers is therefore an elementary dictate
ii DISENCHANTING STRANGERS 299
of savage prudence. Hence before strangers are allowed
to enter a district, or at least before they are permitted
to mingle freely with the inhabitants, certain ceremonies
are often performed by the natives of the country for
the purpose of disarming the strangers of their magical
powers, of counteracting the baneful influence which is
believed to emanate from them, or of disinfecting, so to
speak, the tainted atmosphere by which they are supposed
to be surrounded. Thus in the island of Nanumea (South
Pacific) strangers from ships or from other islands were not
allowed to communicate with the people until they all, or a
few as representatives of the rest, had been taken to each of
the four temples in the island, and prayers offered that the
god would avert any disease or treachery which these
strangers might have brought with them. Meat offerings
were also laid upon the altars, accompanied by songs and
dances in honour of the god. While these ceremonies were
going on, all the people except the priests and their
attendants kept out of sight.1 On returning from an
attempted ascent of the great African mountain Kilimanjaro,
which is believed by the neighbouring tribes to be tenanted
by dangerous demons, Mr. New and his party, as soon as
they reached the border of the inhabited country, were dis-
enchanted by the inhabitants, being sprinkled with " a
professionally prepared liquor, supposed to possess the
potency of neutralising evil influences, and removing the
spell of wicked spirits." " In the interior of Yoruba (West
Africa) the sentinels at the gates of towns often- oblige
European travellers to wait till nightfall before they admit
them, the fear being that if the strangers were admitted by
day the devils would enter behind them.3 Amongst the Ot
Danoms of Borneo it is the custom that strangers entering
the territory should pay to the natives a certain sum, which
is spent in the sacrifice of animals (buffaloes or pigs) to the
spirits of the land and water, in order to reconcile them to
the presence of the strangers, and to induce them not to
1 Turner, Samoa, p. 291 sq. Krapf, Travels, Researches, etc., in
- Charles New, Life, Wanderings, Eastern Africa, p. 192.
and Labours in Eastern Africa, p. 432. 3 Pierre Bouche, La Cote dcs Es-
Cp. ibid. pp. 400, 402. For the claves et le Dahomey (Paris, 1SS5), p.
demons on Mt. Kilimanjaro, see also 133.
300 DISENCHANTING STRANGERS chap.
withdraw their favour from the people of the land, but to
bless the rice-harvest, etc.1 The men of a certain district in
Borneo, fearing to look upon a European traveller lest he
should make them ill, warned their wives and children not
to go near him. These who could not restrain their
curiosity killed fowls to appease the evil spirits and smeared
themselves with the blood." In Laos, before a stranger can
be accorded hospitality, the master of the house must offer
sacrifice to the ancestral spirits ; otherwise the spirits would
be offended and would send disease on the inmates.3 In
the Mentawej Islands, when a stranger enters a house where
there are children, the father or other member of the family
takes the ornament which the children wear in their hair and
hands it to the stranger, who holds it in his hands for a
while and then gives it back to him. This is thought to
protect the children from the evil effect which the sight of a
stranger might have upon them.4 When a Dutch steamship
was approaching their villages, the people of Biak, an island
off the north coast of New Guinea, shook and knocked their
idols about in order to ward off ill-luck.5 At Shepherd's
Isle Captain Moresby had to be disenchanted before he was
allowed to land his boat's crew. When he leaped ashore a
devil-man seized his right hand and waved a bunch of palm
leaves over the captain's head. Then " he placed the leaves
in my left hand, putting a small green twig into his
mouth, still holding me fast, and then, as if with great effort,
drew the twig from his mouth — this was extracting the evil
spirit — after which he blew violently, as if to speed it away.
I now held a twig between my teeth, and he went through
the same process." Then the two raced round a couple of
sticks fixed in the ground and bent to an angle at the top,
which had leaves tied to it. After some more ceremonies
the devil-man concluded by leaping to the level of Captain
Moresby's shoulders (his hands resting on the captain's
shoulders) several times, " as if to show that he had
1 C. A. L. M. Schwaner, Borneo pel (Leipsic, 1878), p. 198.
(Amsterdam, 1853-54), ii. 77. 5 D. W. Horst, "Rapport van eene
2 Ibid. ii. 167. reis naar de Noordkust van Nieuw
:i E. Aymonier, ATotes stir le Laos Guinea," Tijdschriftvoor IndischcTaal-
(Saigon, 1S85), p. 196. Land- en Volkenkunde, xxxii. (1S89),
4 Rosenberg, Der Malayische Archi- p. 229.
ii DISENCHANTING STRANGERS 301
conquered the devil, and was now trampling him into
the earth."1 North American Indians "have an idea that
strangers, particularly white strangers, are ofttimes accom-
panied by evil spirits. Of these they have great dread, as
creating and delighting in mischief. One of the duties of
the medicine chief is to exorcise these spirits. I have some-
times ridden into or through a camp where I was unknown
or unexpected, to be confronted by a tall, half-naked savage,
standing in the middle of the circle of lodges, and yelling in
a sing-song, nasal tone, a string of unintelligible words." 2
When Crevaux was travelling in South America he
entered a village of the Apalai Indians. A few moments
after his arrival some of the Indians brought him a number
of large black ants, of a species whose bite is painful,
fastened on palm leaves. Then all the people of the village,
without distinction of age or sex, presented themselves to
him, and he had to sting them all with the ants on their
faces, thighs, and other parts of their bodies. Sometimes
when he applied the ants too tenderly they called out
" More ! more ! " and were not satisfied till their skin was
thickly studded with tiny swellings like what might have
been produced by whipping them with nettles.3 The object
of this ceremony is made plain by the custom observed in
Amboyna and Uliase of sprinkling sick people with pungent
spices, such as ginger and cloves, chewed fine, in order by
the prickling sensation to drive away the demon of disease
which may be clinging to their persons.4 In Java a popular
cure for gout or rheumatism is to rub Spanish pepper into
the nails of the fingers and toes of the sufferer ; the pun-
gency of the pepper is supposed to be too much for the gout
or rheumatism, who accordingly departs in haste.5 So on
the Slave Coast of Africa the mother of a sick child some-
times believes that an evil spirit has taken possession of the
child's body, and in order to drive him out, she makes small
1 Capt. John Moresby, Discoveries 4 Riedel, De sliiik- en kroesharige
and Sui-veys in Netv Guinea (London, rasscn tusschen Sekbes en Papua, p.
1S76), p. 102 sq. 78.
2 R. I. Dodge, Our Wild Indians 6 J. Kreemer, "Hoedejavaan zijne
(Hartford, Conn., 1S86), p. 119. zieken verzorgt, " Mededeelingen van
3 J. Crevaux, Voyages dans wegehet Nederlandsche Zendelinggenoot-
rAmirique du Sud, p. 300. schap, xxxvi. (1892), p. 13.
302 EXORCISM BY SCARIFICATION chap.
cuts in the body of the little sufferer and inserts green
peppers or spices in the wounds, believing that she will
thereby hurt the evil spirit and force him to be gone. The
poor child naturally screams with pain, but the mother
hardens her heart in the belief that the demon is >sufferins:
equally.1 In Hawaii a patient is sometimes pricked with
bamboo needles for the sake of hurting and expelling a re-
fractory demon who is lurking in the sufferer's body and
making him ill." Dyak sorceresses in South-Eastern Borneo
will sometimes slash the body of a sick man with sharp
knives in order, it is said, to allow the demon of disease
to escape through the cuts;B but perhaps the notion
rather is to make the present quarters of the spirit too
hot for him. With a similar intention some of the natives
of Borneo and Celebes sprinkle rice upon the head or body
of a person supposed to be infested by dangerous spirits ; a
fowl is then brought, which, by picking up the rice from the
person's head or body, removes along with it the spirit or
ghost which is clinging like a burr to his skin. This is done,
for example, to persons who have attended a funeral, and
who may therefore be supposed to be infested by the ghost
of the deceased.4 Similarly Basutos, who have carried a
corpse to the grave, have their hands scratched with a knife
from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the forefinger, and
magic stuff is rubbed into the wound,0 for the purpose, no
doubt, of removing the ghost which may be adhering to their
skin. Among the Barotse of South-Eastern Africa a few
days after a funeral the sorcerer makes an incision in the
forehead of each surviving member of the family and fills it
with medicine, " in order to ward off contagion and the effect
of the sorcery which caused the death." When elephant
hunters in East Africa have killed an elephant they get
1 A. B. Ellis, The Yoruba-speaking 4 Terelaer, Ethnographische Be-
Peoples of the Slave Coast (London, schrijving der Dajaks, pp. 44, 54, 252 ;
1894), p. 113 sa. Matthes, Bijdragen tot tie Ethnologie van
2 A. Bastian, Allerleians J 'oiks- uml Zuid- Celebes (The Hague, 1875), p. 49.
Mensckenkunde (Berlin, 1S88), i. 116. 5 H. Griitzner, " Ueber die Ge-
3 J. B. de Callone, " lets over de brauche der Basutho," in Verhandl. d.
geneeswijze en ziekten der Daijakers Berlin. Gessell. fur Anthropologic, etc.,
ter Zuid Oostkust van Borneo," 1877, P- 84.57/.
Tijdsehrift voor Neerlands Indie, ° L. Decle, Three years in Savage
1840, dl. i. p. 418. Africa (London, 1898), p. 81.
9
ii DISENCHANTING STRANGERS 303
upon its carcass, make little cuts in their toes, and rub gun-
powder into the cuts. This is done with the double
intention of counteracting any evil influence that may-
emanate from the dead elephant, and of acquiring thereby
the fleetness of foot possessed by the animal in its life.1
The people of Nias carefully scrub and scour the weapons
and clothes which they buy, in order to efface all connection
between the things and the persons from whom they bought
them.2
It is probable that the same dread of strangers, rather
than any desire to do them honour, is the motive of certain
ceremonies which are sometimes observed at their reception,
but of which the intention is not directly stated. In the
Ongtong Java Islands, which are inhabited by Polynesians,
and lie a little to the north of the Solomon Islands, the
priests or sorcerers seem to wield great influence. Their main
business is to summon or exorcise spirits for the purpose
of averting or dispelling sickness, and of procuring favour-
able winds, a good catch of fish, and so on. When strangers
land on the islands, they are first of all received by the
sorcerers, sprinkled with water, anointed with oil, and girt
with dried pandanus leaves. At the same time sand and
water are freely thrown about in all directions, and the new-
comer and his boat are wiped with green leaves. After this
ceremony the strangers are introduced by the sorcerers to
the chief.3 In Afghanistan and in some parts of Persia
the traveller, before he enters a village, is frequently received
with a sacrifice of animal life or food, or of fire and incense.
The Afghan Boundary Mission, in passing by villages
in Afghanistan, was often met with fire and incense.4
Sometimes a tray of lighted embers is thrown under the
hoofs of the traveller's horse, with the words, " You are
welcome." y On entering a village in Central Africa Emin
Pasha was received with the sacrifice of two goats ; their
1 P. Reichard, Denlsch - Ostafrika der Ontong Java- und Tasman- In-
(Leipsic, 1892), p. 431. seln," 'Internationales Archiv fur Ethno-
2 Nieuwenhuisen en Rosenberg, graphie, x. (1897), p. 112.
" Verslag omtrent bet eiland Nias," in 4 Journal of the Anthropological
Verhandl. v. h. Batav. Genoolsch. v. Society of Bombay, i. 35.
Kunsten en Wetenschappen , xxx. 26. 5 E. O'Donovan, The Merv Oasis
3 R. Parkinson, " Zur Ethnographie (London, 1SS2), ii. 58.
304 DISENCHANTING STRANGERS chap.
blood was sprinkled on the path and the chief stepped over
the blood to greet Emin.1 Amongst the Esquimaux of
Cumberland Inlet, when a stranger arrives at an encamp-
ment, the sorcerer goes out to meet him. The stranger
folds his arms and inclines his head to one side, so as to
expose his cheek, upon which the magician deals a terrible
blow, sometimes felling him to the ground. Next the
sorcerer in his turn presents his cheek and receives a buffet
from the stranger. Then they kiss each other, the ceremony
is over, and the stranger is hospitably received by all.2
Sometimes the dread of strangers and their magic is too
great to allow of their reception on any terms. Thus when
Speke arrived at a certain village, the natives shut their
doors against him, " because they had never before seen a
white man nor the tin boxes that the men were carrying :
' Who knows,' they said, ' but that these very boxes are the
plundering Watuta transformed and come to kill us ? You
cannot be admitted.' No persuasion could avail with them,
and the party had to proceed to the next village." 3
The fear thus entertained of alien visitors is often mutual.
Entering a strange land the savage feels that he is treading
enchanted ground, and he takes steps to guard against the
demons that haunt it and the magical arts of its inhabitants.
Thus on going to a strange land the Maoris performed
certain ceremonies to make it noa (common), lest it might
have been previously tapn (sacred).4 When Baron Miklucho-
Maclay was approaching a village on the Maclay Coast of
New Guinea, one of the natives who accompanied him broke
a branch from a tree and going aside whispered to it for a
while ; then stepping up to each member of the party, one
after another, he spat something upon his back and gave
him some blows with the branch. Lastly, he went into the
forest and buried the branch under withered leaves in the
thickest part of the jungle. This ceremony was believed to
1 Emin Pasha in Central Africa, Eskimo," Sixth Annual Report of the
being a Collection of his Letters and Bureau of Ethnology (Washington,
Journals (London, 1888), p. 107. 1888), p. 609.
2 Narrative of the Second Arctic a J. A. Grant, A Walk across Africa,
Expedition made by Charles F. Hall, p. 104 sq.
edited by Prof. J. G. Nourse, U.S.N. 4 E. Shortland, Traditions and
(Washington, 1S79), p. 269, note. Superstitions of the New Zealanders'1
Compare Fr. Boas, "The Central (London, 1856), p. 103.
ii DISENCHANTING STRANGE LAND 305
protect the party against all treachery and danger in the
village they were approaching.1 The idea probably was
that the malignant influences were drawn off from the
persons into the branch and buried with it in the depths of
the forest. Before Stuhlmann and his companions entered
the territory of the Wanyamwesi in Central Africa, one of
his men killed a white cock and buried it in a pot just at
the boundary.2 In Australia, when a strange tribe has been
invited into a district and is approaching the encampment
of the tribe which owns the land, " the strangers carry
lighted bark or burning sticks in their hands, for the purpose,
they say, of clearing and purifying the air." 3 So when two
Greek armies were advancing to the onset, sacred men used
to march in front of each, bearing lighted torches, which
they flung into the space between the hosts and then retired
unmolested.4 When a Spartan king was about to go forth
to war, he sacrificed to Zeus, and if the omens were
favourable an official called a Fire-bearer took fire from
the altar and carried it before the army to the frontier.
There the king again sacrificed, and if the omens were again
favourable, he crossed the border, and the fire continued to
be borne in front of him and might not be quenched.5
Amongst the Ovambo of South-Western Africa in time of
war the chief names a general who leads the army to battle.
Next to the general the highest place in the army is
occupied by the omunene u oshikuui, that is, " the owner of
the firewood," who carries a burning brand before the army
on the march. If the brand goes out, it is an evil omen,
and the army at once returns.6 In these cases the fire borne
at the head of the army may have been intended to dissipate
the evil influences, whether magical or spiritual, with which
the air of the enemy's country might be conceived to teem.
1 N. von Miklucho-Maclay, liEth- 4 Scholiast on Euripides, Phoeniss.
nologische Bemerkungen iiber die 1377- These men were sacred to the
Papuas der Maclay-Kuste in Neu- war-god Ares, and were always spared
Guinea," Natuurkundig Tijdschrift in battle.
voor Nederlandsch Indie, xxxvi. 317 sq. 5 Xenophon, Respubl. Lacedaem.
2 Fr. Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha xiii. 2 sq. ; Nicolaus Damascenus,
ins Herz von Afrika (Berlin, 1S94), p. quoted by Stobaeus, Florilegium, xliv.
94. 41 (vol. ii. p. 188, ed. Meineke).
3 B rough Smyth, Aborigines of 8 H. Schinz, Deutsch - Siidwest-
Victoria, i. 134, Afrika, p. 320.
VOL. 1 X
306 DISENCHANTMENT AFTER JOURNEY chap.
Again, it is thought that a man who has been on a
journey may have contracted some magic evil from the
strangers with whom he has been brought into contact.
Hence, on returning home, before he is readmitted to the
society of his tribe and friends, he has to undergo certain
purificatory ceremonies. Thus the Bechuanas " cleanse or
purify themselves after journeys by shaving their heads, etc.,
lest they should have contracted from strangers some evil
by witchcraft or sorcery." v In some parts of Western Africa
when a man returns home after a long absence, before he is
allowed to visit his wife, he must wash his person with a
particular fluid, and receive from the sorcerer a certain mark
on his forehead, in order to counteract any magic spell
which a stranger woman may have cast on him in his
absence, and which might be communicated through him to
the women of his village.'2 Every year about one-third of
the men of the Wanyamwesi tribe make journeys to the east
coast of Africa either as porters or as traffickers. Before he
sets out, the husband smears his cheeks with a sort of meal-
porridge, and during his absence his wife must eat no flesh
and must keep for him the sediment of the porridge in the
pot. On their return from the coast the men sprinkle meal
every day on all the paths leading to the camp, for the
purpose, it is supposed, of keeping evil spirits off; and
when they reach their homes the men again smear porridge
on their faces, while the women who have stayed at home
strew ashes on their heads.3 A story is told of a Navajo
Indian who, after long wanderings, returned to his own
people. When he came within sight of his house, -his people
made him stop and told him not to approach nearer till
they had summoned a shaman. When the shaman was
come "ceremonies were performed over the returned wanderer,
and he was washed from head to foot, and dried with corn-
meal ; for thus do the Navajo treat all who return to their
homes from captivity with another tribe, in order that all
alien substances and influences may be removed from them.
1 John Campbell, Travels in South Afrika (Buda-Pest and Leipsic, 1859),
Africa, being a Narrative of a Second p. 203.
Journey in the Interior of that Country 3 Fr. Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha
(London, 1822), ii. 205. ins Herz von Afrika (Berlin, 1894), p.
2 Ladislaus Magyar, Reisen in Slid- 89.
1 1 DISENCHANTMENT AFTER JO URNE Y 307
When he had been thus purified he entered the house, and
his people embraced him and wept over him." x Two
Hindoo ambassadors, who had been sent to England by a
native prince and had returned to India, were considered to
have so polluted themselves by contact with strangers that
nothing but being born again could restore them to purity.
" For the purpose of regeneration it is directed to make an
image of pure gold of the female power of nature, in the
shape either of a woman or of a cow. In this statue the
person to be regenerated is enclosed, and dragged through
the usual channel. As a statue of pure gold and of proper
dimensions would be too expensive, it is sufficient to make
an image of the sacred Yoni, through which the person to be
regenerated is to pass." Such an image of pure gold was
made at the prince's command, and his ambassadors were
born again by being dragged through it.2 When Damaras
return home after a long absence, they are given a small
portion of the fat of particular animals which is supposed
to possess certain virtues.3 In some of the Moluccas, when
a brother or young blood - relation returns from a long
journey, a young girl awaits him at the door with a caladi
leaf in her hand and water in the leaf. She throws the
water over his face and bids him welcome.4 The natives of
Savage Island (South Pacific) invariably killed, not only all
strangers in distress who were drifted to their shores, but
also any of their own people who had gone away in a
ship and returned home. This was done out of dread of
disease. Long after they began to venture out to ships they
would not immediately use the things they obtained from
them, but hung them up in quarantine for weeks in the
bush.'
When precautions like these are taken on behalf of the
people in general against the malignant influence supposed
to be exercised by strangers, we shall not be surprised to
find that special measures are adopted to protect the king
1 Washington Matthews, " The 3 C. J. Andersson, Lake Ngami?
Mountain Chant : a Navajo Ceremony," (London, 1856),. p. 223.
Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of . . ,T
t/,i i /iv u- * ,ou,> „ „ " * Francois Valentyn, Una en meuv
Ethnology (Washington, Ibb7), p. 410. _, _ ,? ... . ' '
•? i ■ F 1 d / • ,-,,. a Oost-Indien, 111. 16.
J Asiatick Researches, vi. 535 sq. ed.
4to (p. 537 -7. ed 8vo). 5 Turner, Samoa, p. 305 sq.
3o8
KINGS GUARDED
CHAP.
from the same insidious danger. In the middle ages the
envoys who visited a Tartar Khan were obliged to pass
between two fires before they were admitted to his presence,
and the gifts they brought were also carried between the
fires. The reason assigned for the custom was that the fire
purged away any magic influence which the strangers might
mean to exercise over the Khan.1 When subject chiefs come
with their retinues to visit Kalamba (the most powerful
chief of the Bashilange in the Congo Basin) for the first
time or after being rebellious, they have to bathe, men and
women together, in two brooks on two successive days,
passing the nights under the open sky in the market-place.
After the second bath they proceed, entirely naked, to the
house of Kalamba, who makes a long white mark on the
breast and forehead of each of them. Then they return to
the market-place and dress, after which they undergo the
pepper ordeal. Pepper is dropped into the eyes of each of
them, and while this is being done the sufferer has to make
a confession of all his sins, to answer all questions that may
be put to him, and to take certain vows. This ends the
ceremony, and the strangers are now free to take up their
quarters in the town for as long as they choose to remain.2
At Kilema, in Eastern Africa, when a stranger arrives, a
medicine is made out of a certain plant or a tree fetched
from a distance, mixed with the blood of a sheep or goat.
With this mixture the stranger is besmeared or besprinkled
before he is admitted to the presence of the king.3 The
King of Monomotapa, in South-East Africa, might not wear
any foreign stuffs for fear of their being poisoned.4 The
King of Cacongo, in West Africa, might not possess or even
touch European goods, except metals, arms, and articles
made of wood and ivory. Persons wearing foreign stuffs
were very careful to keep at a distance from his person, lest
1 De Piano Carpini, Historia Mon-
goloram quos nos Tariaros appellamus,
ed. D'Avezac (Paris, 1 838), cap. iii. § iii.
p. 627, cap. ult. § i. x. p. 744, and
Appendix, p. 775 : "Travels of William
de Rubriquis into Tartary and China,"
in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, vii.
82 sq.
- Paul Pogge, " Bericht liber die
Station Mukenge," Mittheihuigen der
Afrikanischen Gesellschaft in Deutsch-
land, iv. (1883- 1 885), p. 182 sq.
3 J. L. Krapf, Travels, Researches,
and Missionaiy Labours during an
Eighteen Years' Residence in Eastern
Africa, p. 252 sq.
4 Dapper, Description de V Afrique,
P- 39i-
ii AGAINST MAGIC OF STRANGERS 309
they should touch him.1 The King of Loango might not
look upon the house of a white man.2 We have already-
seen how the native King of Fernando Po dwells secluded
from all contact with the whites in the depths of an extinct
volcano, shunning the very sight of a pale face, which, in the
belief of his subjects, would be instantly fatal to him.3 In a
wild mountainous district of Java, to the south of Bantam,
there exists a small aboriginal race who have been described
as a living antiquity. These are the Baduwis, who about
the year 1443 fled from Bantam to escape conversion to
Islam, and in their mountain fastnesses, holding aloof from
their neighbours, still cleave to the quaint and primitive ways
of their heathen forefathers. Their villages are perched in
spots which deep ravines, lofty precipices, raging torrents,
and impenetrable forests combine to render almost inaccess-
ible. Their hereditary ruler bears the title of Girang-Pu-un
and unites in his hands the temporal and spiritual power.
He must never quit the capital, and none even of his subjects
who live outside the town are ever allowed to see him.
Were an alien to set foot in his dwelling, the place would
be desecrated and abandoned. In former times the repre-
sentatives of the Dutch Government and the Regent of Java
once paid a visit to the capital of the Baduwis. That very
night all the people fled the place and never returned.4
In the opinion of savages the acts of eating and drinking
are attended with special danger ; for at these times the soul
may escape from the mouth, or be extracted by the magic
arts of an enemy present. Among the Ewe-speaking peoples
of the Slave Coast " the common belief seems to be that the
indwelling spirit leaves the body and returns to it through
the mouth ; hence, should it have gone out, it behoves a
man to be careful about opening his mouth, lest a homeless
spirit should take advantage of the opportunity and enter his
1 Proyart, " History of Loango, 3 See above, p. 238 sq.
Kakongo," etc., in Pinkerton's Voyages 4 L. von Ende, "Die Baduwis auf
and Travels, xvi. 583 ; Dapper, op. Java," Mittheilungen der anthropo-
cit. p. 340 ; J. Ogilby, Africa (Lon- logischen Gesellschaft in Wien, xix.
don, 1670), p. 521. Cp. Bastian, Die (1889), pp. 7-10. As to the Baduwis
deutsche Expedition an der Loango- (Badoejs), see also G. A. Wilken,
Aiis/e, 1. 288. Handleiding voor de vergelijkende Vol-
kenkitnde van Nederlandsch - Indie
2 Bastian, op. cit. i. 268 sq. (Leyden, 1893), pp. 640-643.
310 AVERSION TO BE SEEN EATING chap.
body. This, it appears, is considered most likely to take
place while the man is eating." l Precautions are therefore
taken to guard against these dangers. Thus of the Battas
of Sumatra it is said that " since the soul can leave the body,
they always take care to prevent their soul from straying on
occasions when they have most need of it. But it is only
possible to prevent the soul from straying when one is in
the house. At feasts one may find the whole house shut
up, in order that the soul {tondi) may stay and enjoy the
good things set before it."2 The Zafimanelo in Madagascar
lock their doors when they eat, and hardly any one ever
sees them eating.3 In Shoa, one of the southern provinces
of Abyssinia, the doors of the house are scrupulously barred
at meals to exclude the evil eye, and a fire is invariably
lighted, else devils would enter and there would be no
blessing on the meat.4 The Warua will not allow any one
to see them eating and drinking, being doubly particular
that no person of the opposite sex shall see them doing so.
" I had to pay a man to let me see him drink ; I could not
make a man let a woman see him drink." When offered a
drink of pombe they often ask that a cloth may be held up to
hide them whilst drinking. Further, each man and woman
must cook for themselves ; each person must have his own
fire.5 In Fiji persons who suspected others of plotting against
them avoided eating in their presence, or were careful to
leave no fragment of food behind.0
If these are the ordinary precautions taken by common
people, the precautions taken by kings are extraordinary.
The King of Loango may not be seen eating or drinking by
man or beast under pain of death. A favourite dog having
broken into the room where the king was dining, the king
ordered it to be killed on the spot. Once the king's
1 A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking tananarivo Annual and Madagascar
Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 107. Magazine, No. ii. p. 219.
* J. B.Neumann," Het Pane- en Bila- 4 W. Cornwallis Harris, The Higk-
Stroomgebied op het eiland Sumatra," lands 0f Aethiopia, iii. 171 so.
Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch .
Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, Tweede ° lfut- Cameron, Across Africa, ...
Serie, dl. iii. (1886), Afdeeling, meer \l («*. 1877); «*, m Journ. Anthrop.
uitgebreide artikelen, No. 2, p. 300. ImL V1- (lS77), P- r73-
3 J. Richardson, " Tanala Customs, c Th. Williams, Fiji and the Fijians,
Superstitions and Beliefs," The An- i. 249.
ii KINGS NO T SEEN EA TING 3 1 1
own son, a boy of twelve years old, inadvertently saw the
king drink. Immediately the king ordered him to be finely
apparelled and feasted, after which he commanded him to
be cut in quarters, and carried about the city with a pro-
clamation that he had seen the king drink. " When the
king has a mind to drink, he has a cup of wine brought ; he
that brings it has a bell in his hand, and as soon as he has
delivered the cup to the king he turns his face from him and
rings the bell, on which all present fall down with their faces
to the ground, and continue so till the king has drank."
" His eating is much in the same style, for which he has a
house on purpose, where his victuals are set upon a bensa
or table : which he goes to and shuts the door : when he
has done, he knocks and comes out. So that none ever see
the king eat or drink. For it is believed that if any one
should, the king shall immediately die." The remnants of
his food are buried, doubtless to prevent them from falling
into the hands of sorcerers, who by means of these fragments
might cast a fatal spell over the monarch.1 The rules
observed by the neighbouring King of Cacongo were similar;
it was thought that the king would die if any of his subjects
were to see him drink.2 It is a capital offence to see the
King of Dahomey at his meals. When he drinks in public,
as he does on extraordinary occasions, he hides himself
behind a curtain, or handkerchiefs are held up round his
head, and all the people throw themselves with their faces to
the earth.3 Any one who saw the Muata Jamwo (a great
potentate in the Congo Basin) eating or drinking would
certainly be put to death.4 Among the Monbutto of Central
Africa the king invariably takes his meals in private ; no
one may see the contents of his dish, and all that he leaves
is carefully thrown into a pit set apart for that purpose.
Everything that the king has handled is held sacred and
1 "Adventures of Andrew Battel," Kakongo," etc., in Pinkerton's Voyages
in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, and Travels, xvi. 584.
xvi. 330 ; Dapper, Description de ■i J. L. Wilson, Western Africa, p.
VAfrique, p. 330; Bastian, Die dentsche 202 ; John Duncan, Travels in Western
Expedition an der Loango- Kiiste, i. Africa, i. 222. Cp. W. W. Reade,
262 sq. : R. F. Burton, Abeoknta and Savage Africa, p. 543.
the Cameroons Mountains, i. 147. 4 Paul Pogge, Im Reiche des Mttata
2 Proyart's "History of Loango, Jamwo (Berlin, 1880), p. 231.
312
KINGS NOT SEEN EATING
CHAT.
may not be touched.1 The King of Susa, a region to the
south of Abyssinia, presides daily at the feast in the long
banqueting-hall, but is hidden from the gaze of his subjects
by a curtain.2 Among the Ewe-speaking peoples of the
Slave Coast the person of the king is sacred, and if he
drinks in public every one must turn away the head so as
not to see him, while some of the women of the court hold
up a cloth before him as a screen. He never eats in public,
and the people pretend to believe that he neither eats nor
sleeps. It is criminal to say the contrary.3 When the King
of Tonga ate, all the people turned their backs to him.4 In
the palace of the Persian kings there were two dining-rooms
opposite each other ; in one of them the king dined, in the
other his guests. He could see them through a curtain on
the door, but they could not see him. Generally the king
took his meals alone ; but sometimes his wife or some of
his sons dined with him.5
In these cases, however, the intention may perhaps be
to hinder evil influences from entering the body rather than
to prevent the escape of the soul. To the former rather
than to the latter motive is to be ascribed the custom
observed by some African sultans of veiling their faces.
The Sultan of Darfur wraps up his face with a piece of white
muslin, which goes round his head several times, covering
his mouth and nose first, and then his forehead, so that only
his eyes are visible. The same custom of veiling the face
as a mark of sovereignty is said to be observed in other
parts of Central Africa.6 The Sultan of Wadai always
speaks from behind a curtain ; no one sees his face except
1 G. Schweinfurth, The Heart of
Africa, ii. 45 (third edition, London,
1878) ; G. Casati, Ten Years in
Equatoria (London and New York,
1891), i 7.
2 W. Cornwallis Harris, The High-
lands of Aethiopia, iii. 78.
3 A. B. Ellis, The Ewe -speaking
Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 162 sq.
4 Capt. James Cook, Voyages, v. 374
(ed. 1809).
5 Heraclides Cumanus, in Athenaeus,
iv. p. 145 b-d. On the other hand, in
Kafa no one, not even the king, may
eat except in the presence of a legal
witness. A slave is appointed to wit-
ness the king's meals, and his office is
esteemed honourable. See Ph. Paul-
itschke, Ethnographie Nordost-Afrikas :
die geistige Cieltur der Danakil, Galla
tend Somdl (Berlin, 1896), p. 248.57/.
0 Mohammed Ibn-Omar el Tounsy,
Voyage au Darfoier (Paris, 1S45), p.
203 ; Travels of an Arab Rlerchani
[Mohammed Ibn-Omar el Tounsy] in
Soudan, abridged from the French
(of Perron) by Bayle St. John, p. 91
sq.
ii VEILED FACES 313
his intimates and a few favoured persons.1 The King of
Jebu, on the Slave Coast of West Africa, is surrounded by
a great deal of mystery. Until lately his face might not be
seen even by his own subjects, and if circumstances compelled
him to communicate with them he did so through a screen
which concealed him from view. Now, though his face may
be seen, it is customary to hide his body ; and at audiences
a cloth is held before him so as to conceal him from the
neck downwards, and it is raised so as to cover him altogether
whenever he coughs, sneezes, spits, or takes snuff. His face
is partially hidden by a conical cap with hanging strings of
beads.'2 Amongst the Touaregs of the Sahara all the men
(but not the women) keep the lower part of their face,
especially the mouth, veiled constantly ; the veil is never
put off, not even in eating or sleeping.3 In Samoa a man
whose family god was the turtle might not eat a turtle, and
if he helped a neighbour to cut up and cook one he had to
wear a bandage tied over his mouth lest an embryo turtle
should slip down his throat, grow up, and be his death.4 In
West Timor a speaker holds his right hand before his mouth
in speaking lest a demon should enter his body, and lest the
person with whom he converses should harm the speaker's
soul by magic.5 In New South Wales for some time after
his initiation into the tribal mysteries, a young blackfellow
(whose soul at this time is in a critical state) must always
cover his mouth with a rug when a woman is present.6
We have already seen how common is the notion that the
life or soul may escape by the mouth or nostrils.7
By an extension of the like precaution kings are some-
times forbidden ever to leave their palaces ; or, if they are
allowed to do so, their subjects are forbidden to see them
abroad. We have seen that the priestly king at Shark
1 Mohammed Ibn-Omar el Tounsy, times veiled their faces ( Hhausen,
Voyage an Ouad&y (Paris, 185 1), p. 375. Reste Arabischen Ileidentumes,x^.\/\b).
2 A. B. Ellis, The Yornba-speaking 4 Turner, Samoa, p. 67 sq.
Peoples of 'the Slave Coast, p. 170. 5 Riedel, "Die Landschaft Da wan
3 H. Duveyrier, Exploration dn Sa- oder West-Timor," Deutsche Geogra-
hara : les Touareg du Nord, p. 391 sq. ; phische Blatter, x. 230.
Reclus, Nouvelle Ge'ographie Univer- ° A. W. Howitt, "On some Aus-
selle, xi. 838 sq. ; James Richardson, tralian Ceremonies of Initiation, "Journ
Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, Anthrop. Inst. xiii. (1884), p. 456.
ii. 208. Amongst the Arabs men some- 7 Above, p. 251 sq.
314 KING SHUT UP IN PALACE chap.
Point, West Africa, may never quit his house or even his
chair, in which he is obliged to sleep sitting, and that the
King of Fernando Po, whom no white man may see, is
reported to be confined to his house with shackles on his
legs.1 The fetish king of Benin, who was worshipped as a
deity by his subjects, might not quit his palace.2 After his
coronation the King of Loango is confined to his palace,
which he may not leave.3 The King of I bo, West Africa,
" does not step out of his house into the town unless a
human sacrifice is made to propitiate the gods : on this
account he never goes out beyond the precincts of his
premises." 4 The kings of Ethiopia were worshipped as gods,
but were mostly kept shut up in their palaces.5 On the
mountainous coast of Pontus there dwelt in antiquity a rude
and warlike people named the Mosyni or Mosynoeci, through
whose rugged country the Ten Thousand marched on their
famous retreat from Asia to Europe. These barbarians kept
their king in close custody at the top of a high tower, from
which after his election he was never more allowed to descend.
Here he dispensed justice to his people ; but if he offended
them, they punished him by stopping his rations for a whole
day, or even starving him to death.6 The kings of Sabaea or
Sheba, the spice country of Arabia, were not allowed to go
out of their palaces ; if they did so, the mob stoned them to
death.7 But at the top of the palace there was a window
1 See above, p. 239. Scymnus Chius, Orbis descriptio, 900
2 This rule was mentioned to me sqq. [Geographi Graeci Minores, ed. C.
in conversation by Miss Mary H. Miiller, i. 234) ; Diodorus Siculus,
Kingsley. As to the worship of the xiv. 30. 6 sq. • Nicolaus Damascenus,
King of Renin, see above, p. 147 sq. quoted by Stobaeus, Florileginm, xliv.
3 Bastian, Die detitsehe Expedition 41 (vol. ii. p. 185, ed. Meineke) ;
an der Loango-Kitste, i. 263. How- Apollonius Rhodius, Argon, ii. 1026,
ever, a case is recorded in which he sqq., with the note of the scholiast ;
marched out to war [ibid. i. 268 sq.). Pomponius Mela, i. 106, p. 29, ed.
4 S. Crowther and J. C. Taylor, Parthey. Die Chrysostom refers to the
The Gospel on the Banks of the Niger, custom without mentioning the name
p. 433. On p. 379 of the same work of the people {Or. xiv. vol. i. p. 257,
mention is made of the king's "annual ed. Dindorf).
appearance to the public," but this may ' Strabo, xvi. 4. 19; Diodorus
have taken place within "the precincts Siculus, iii. 47. Inscriptions found in
of his premises." Sheba (the country about two hundred
5 Strabo, xvii. 2. 2, cr^dovraL 8' cos miles north of Aden) seem to show
deovs tovs [SacriKeas, KaraKXeLaTovs cWas that the land was at first ruled by a
Kal olKovpovs to TrXeov. succession of priestly kings, who were
c Xenophon, Anabasis, v. 4. 26 ; afterwards followed by kings in the
II
KING SHUT UP IN PAIACE
i*5
with a chain attached to it. If any man deemed he had
suffered wrong, he pulled the chain, and the king perceived
him and called him in and gave judgment.1 So to this day
the kings of Corea, whose persons are sacred and receive
" honours almost divine," are shut up in their palace from the
age of twelve or fifteen ; and if a suitor wishes to obtain
justice of the king he sometimes lights a great bonfire on a
mountain facing the palace ; the king sees the fire and
informs himself of the case.2 The Emperor of China seldom
quits his palace, and when he does so, no one may look at
him ; even the guards who line the road must turn their
backs.3 The King of Tonquin was permitted to appear
abroad twice or thrice a year for the performance of certain
religious ceremonies ; but the people were not allowed to
look at him. The dav before he came forth notice was
given to all the inhabitants of the city and country to keep
from the way the king was to go ; the women were obliged
to remain in their houses and durst not show themselves
under pain of death, a penalty which was carried out on the
spot if any one disobeyed the order, even through ignorance.
Thus the king was invisible to all but his troops and the
officers of his suite.4 In Mandalay a stout lattice-paling, six
feet high and carefully kept in repair, lined every street in the
walled city and all those streets in the suburbs through which
the king was likely at any time to pass. Behind this paling,
which stood two feet or so from the houses, all the people
had to stay when the king or any of the queens went out.
ordinary sense. The names of many
of these priestly kings {makarribs, liter-
ally "blessers") are preserved in in-
scriptions. See Prof. S. R. Driver, in
Authority and Archaeology, Sacred and
Profane, edited by D. G. Hogarth
(London, 1899), p. 82. Probably these
" blessers " are the kings referred to by
the Greek writers. We may suppose
that the blessings they dispensed con-
sisted in a proper regulation of the
weather, abundance of the fruits of the
earth, and so on.
1 Heraclides Cumanus, in Athenaeus,
xii. p. 517 B-C.
2 Ch. Dallet. Hisioirc de ?£glise de
Coree" (Paris, 1874), i. pp. xxiv.-xxvi.
The king sometimes, though rarely,
leaves his palace. When he does so,
notice is given beforehand to his people.
All doors must be shut and each house-
holder must kneel before his threshold
with a broom and a dust-pan in his
hand. All windows, especially the
upper ones, must be sealed with slips of
paper, lest some one should look down
upon the king. See W. E. Griffis,
Corea, the Hermit Nation, p. 222.
3 This I learned from the late Mr.
W. Simpson, formerly artist of the
Illustrated London News.
4 Richard, "History of Tonquin,"
in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, ix.
746.
316 REFUSE OF FOOD IN MAGIC chap.
Any one who was caught outside it by the beadles after the
procession had started was severely handled, and might
think himself lucky if he got off with a beating. Nobody
was supposed to peep through the holes in the lattice-work,
which were besides partly stopped up with flowering shrubs.1
Again, magic mischief may be wrought upon a man
through the remains of the food he has partaken of, or the
dishes out of which he has eaten. On the principles of
sympathetic magic a real connection continues to subsist
between the food which a man has in his stomach and the
refuse of it which he has left untouched, and hence by
injuring the refuse you can simultaneously injure the eater.
Among the Narrinyeri of South Australia every adult is
constantly on the look-out for bones of beasts, birds, or fish,
of which the flesh has been eaten by somebody, in order to
construct a deadly charm out of them. Every one is there-
fore careful to burn the bones of the animals which he has
eaten lest they should fall into the hands of a sorcerer. Too
often, however, the sorcerer succeeds in getting hold of such
a bone, and when he does so he believes that he has the
power of life and death over the man, woman, or child who
ate the flesh of the animal. To put the charm in operation
he makes a paste of red ochre and fish oil, inserts in it the
eye of a cod and a small piece of the flesh of a corpse, and
having rolled the compound into a ball sticks it on the top
of the bone. After being left for some time in the bosom of
a dead body, in order that it may derive a deadly potency
by contact with corruption, the magical implement is set up
in the ground near the fire, and as the ball melts, so the
person against whom the charm is directed wastes with
disease ; if the ball is melted quite away, the victim will die.
When the bewitched man learns of the spell that is being
cast upon him, he endeavours to buy the bone from the
sorcerer, and if he obtains it he breaks the charm by throwing
the bone into a river or lake.2 Further, the Narrinyeri think
that if a man eats of the totem animal of his tribe, and an
enemy obtains a portion of the flesh, the latter can make it
1 Shway Yoe, The Barman, i. 30 2 G. Taplin, in ATative Tribes of
sq. ; cp. Indian Antiquary, xx. (1891), South Australia, pp. 24-26 ; id., in E.
p. 49. M. Curr, The Australian Race, ii. p. 247.
ii REFUSE OF FOOD IN MAGIC 317
grow in the inside of the eater, and so cause his death.
Therefore when a man partakes of his totem he is careful
either to eat it all or else to conceal or destroy the refuse.1
In the Encounter Bay Tribe of South Australia, when a man
cannot get the bone of an animal which his enemy has eaten,
he cooks a bird, beast, or fish, and keeping back one of the
creature's bones, offers the rest under the guise of friendship
to his enemy. If the man is simple enough to partake of
the proffered food, he is at the mercy of his perfidious foe,
who can kill him by placing the abstracted bone near the
fire.2 Ideas and practices of the same sort prevail in
Melanesia ; all that was needed to injure a man was to
bring the leavings of his food into contact with a malignant
ghost or spirit. Hence in the island of Florida when a scrap
of an enemy's dinner was secreted and thrown into a haunted
place, the man was supposed to fall ill ; and in the New
Hebrides if a snake of a certain sort carried away a fragment
of food to a spot sacred to a spirit, the man who had eaten
the food would sicken as the fragment decayed. In Aurora
the refuse is made up with certain leaves ; as these rot and
stink, the man dies. Hence it is, or was, a constant care
with the Melanesians to prevent the remains of their meals
from falling into the hands of persons who bore them a
grudge ; for this reason they regularly gave the refuse of
food to the pigs.3 In Tana, one of the New Hebrides, people
bury or throw into the sea the leavings of their food, lest
these should fall into the hands of the disease-makers. For
if a disease-maker finds the remnants of a meal, say the skin
of a banana, he picks it up and burns it slowly in the fire.
1 G. Taplin, in Native Tribes of he would suffer equally with his enemy
South Australia, p. 63 ; id., " Notes from any injury done to the refuse,
on the Mixed Races of Australia," This is the idea which in primitive
Journal of the Anthropological Institute, society lends sanctity to the bond pro-
iv. (1875), P- 53; *d-t m E. M. Curr, duced by eating together ; by partaking
The Australian Race, ii. 245. of the same food the eaters give each
2 H. E. A. Meyer, in Native Tribes other the best possible guarantee that
of South Australia, p. 196. they will devise no mischief one against
3 R. H. Codrington, The Mela- the other, since any such mischief would
nesians, p. 203 sq., cp. pp. 178, 18S, affect the plotter just as much as his
214. A corollary from these principles, victim. In strict logic, however, the
as Dr. Codrington points out, is that sympathetic bond lasts only so long as
no one who intends to harm a man by the food is in the stomach of each of
the refuse of his food will himself par- the parties. See W. Robertson Smith,
take of that food ; because if he did so, The Religion of the Semites,2 p. 270.
3*8
DANGERS OF SANCTITY
CHAP.
As it burns the person who ate the banana falls ill and sends
to the disease-maker, offering him presents if he will stop
burning the banana skin.1 For the same reason, no one
may touch the food which the King of Loango leaves upon
his plate ; it is buried in a hole in the ground. And no one
may drink out of the king's vessel.2 Similarly no man may
drink out of the same cup or glass with the King of Fida,
in Guinea ; " he hath always one kept particularly for him-
self; and that which hath but once touched another's lips
he never uses more, though it be made of metal that may
be cleansed by fire." 3 Amongst the Alfoors of Celebes
there is a priest called the Leleeu, whose duty appears to be
to make the rice grow. His functions begin about a month
before the rice is sown, and end after the crop is housed.
During this time he has to observe certain taboos ; amongst
others he may not eat or drink with any one else, and he
may drink out of no vessel but his own.4
We have seen that the Mikado's food was cooked every
day in new pots and served up in new dishes ; both pots
and dishes were of common clay, in order that they might
be broken or laid aside after they had been once used.
They were generally broken, for it was believed that if any
one else ate his food out of these sacred dishes, his mouth
and throat would become swollen and inflamed. The same
ill effect was thought to be experienced by any one who
should wear the Mikado's clothes without his leave ; he
would have swellings and pains all over his body.5 In Fiji
there is a special name {Jama lama) for the disease supposed
to be caused by eating out of a chief's dishes or wearing his
clothes. " The throat and body swell, and the impious
person dies. I had a fine mat given to me by a man who
durst not use it because Thakambau's eldest son had sat
1 Turner, Samoa, p. 320 sq. For
other examples of witchcraft wrought
by means of the refuse of food, see
E. S. Hartland, The Legend of Perseus,
ii. 83 sqq.
- Dapper, Description de F Afriqite,
p. 330. We have seen that the food
left by the King of the Monbutto, is
carefully buried (above, p. 311).
3 Bosnian's "Guinea," in Pinker-
ton's Voyages and Travels, xvi. 487.
4 P. N. Wilken, " Bijdragen tot de
kennis van de zeden en gevvoonten
der Alfoeren in de Minahassa," Mede-
deelingen van wege het Nederlandsche
Zendelinggenootscliap, vii. (1863), p.
126.
5 Kaempfer's " History of Japan,"
in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels,
vii. 717.
ii DANGERS OF SANCTITY 319
upon it. There was always a family or clan of commoners
who were exempt from this danger. I was talking about
this once to Thakambau. ' Oh yes,' said he. ' Here, So-and-
so ! come and scratch my back.' The man scratched ; he
was one of those who could do it with impunity.' ' The
name of the men thus highly privileged was Na nduka ni,
or the dirt of the chief.1
In the evil effects thus supposed to follow upon the use
of the vessels or clothes of the Mikado and a Fijian chief
we see that other side of the god-man's character to which
attention has been already called. The divine person is a
source of danger as well as of blessing ; he must not only
be guarded, he must also be guarded against. His sacred
organism, so delicate that a touch may disorder it, is also
electrically charged with a powerful spiritual force which
may discharge itself with fatal effect on whatever comes in
contact with it. Hence the isolation of the man-god is
quite as necessary for the safety of others as for his own.
His divinity is a fire, which, under proper restraints, confers
endless blessings, but, if rashly touched or allowed to break
bounds, burns and destroys what it touches. Hence the
disastrous effects supposed to attend a breach of taboo ; the
offender has thrust his hand into the divine fire, which
shrivels up and consumes him on the spot. In Tonga, for
example, it was believed that if any one fed himself with
his own hands after touching the sacred person of a superior
chief or anything that belonged to him, he would swell up
and die ; the sanctity of the chief, like a virulent poison,
infected the hands of his inferior, and, being communicated
through them to the food, proved fatal to the eater. A
commoner who had incurred this danger could disinfect
himself by performing a certain ceremony, which consisted
in touching the sole of a chief's foot with the palm and back
of each of his hands, and afterwards rinsing his hands in
water. If there was no water near, he rubbed his hands
with the juicy stem of a plantain or banana. After that
he was free to feed himself with his own hands without
danger of being attacked by the malady which would other-
1 Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a letter to In Fijian, kana is to eat ; the meaning
the author dated August 26th, 1898. of lama is unknown.
320 DANGERS OF SANCTITY chap.
wise follow from eating with tabooed or sanctified hands.
But until the ceremony of expiation or disinfection had been
performed, if he wished to eat, he had either to get some
one to feed him, or else to go down on his knees and pick
up the food from the ground with his mouth like a beast.
He might not even use a toothpick himself, but might guide
the hand of another person holding the toothpick. The
Tongans were subject to induration of the liver and certain
forms of scrofula, which they often attributed to a failure to
perform the requisite expiation after having inadvertently
touched a chief or his belongings. Hence they often went
through the ceremony as a precaution, without knowing that
they had done anything to call for it. The King of Tonga
could not refuse to play his part in the rite by presenting
his foot to such as desired to touch it, even when they
applied to him at an inconvenient time. A fat unwieldy
king, who perceived his subjects approaching with this
intention, while he chanced to be taking his walks abroad,
has been sometimes seen to waddle as fast as his legs could
carry him out of their way, in order to escape the impor-
tunate and not wholly disinterested expression of their
homage. If any one fancied he might have already un-
wittingly eaten with tabooed hands, he sat down before the
chief, and, taking the chief's foot, pressed it against his own
stomach, that the food in his belly might not injure him,
and that he might not swell up and die.1 As scrofula was
regarded by the Tongans as a result of eating with tabooed
hands, we may conjecture that persons who suffered from it
among them often resorted to the touch or pressure of the
king's foot as a cure for their malady. The analogy of the
custom with the old English practice of bringing scrofulous
patients to the king to be healed by his touch is sufficiently
obvious, and suggests that among our own remote ancestors
scrofula may have obtained its name of the King's - evil,
from a belief like that of the Tongans, that it was caused
1 W. Mariner, Tonga Islands,2 i. chief or the hody of dead one was
141 sq. note, 434 note, ii. 82 sq., 221- forbidden to handle his food, and must
224 ; Cook, Voyages (London, 1809), be fed by another (J. E. Erskine, The
v. 427 sq. Similarly in Fiji any person Western Pacific, p. 254).
who had touched the head of a living
ii DANGERS OF SANCTITY 321
as well as cured by contact with the divine majesty of
kings.1
In New Zealand the dread of the sanctity of chiefs was
at least as great as in Tonga. Their ghostly power, derived
from an ancestral spirit or atna, diffused itself by contagion
over everything they touched, and could strike dead all who
rashly or unwittingly meddled with it.2 For instance, it
once happened that a New Zealand chief of high rank and
great sanctity had left the remains of his dinner by the
wayside. A slave, a stout, hungry fellow, coming up after
the chief had gone, saw the unfinished dinner, and ate it
up without asking questions. Hardly had he finished when
he was informed by a horror-stricken spectator that the
food of which he had eaten was the chief's. " I knew the
unfortunate delinquent well. He was remarkable for
courage, and had signalised himself in the wars of the
tribe," but " no sooner did he hear the fatal news than he
was seized by the most extraordinary convulsions and
cramp in the stomach, which never ceased till he died, about
sundown the same day. He was a strong man, in the
prime of life, and if any pakeha [European] freethinker
should have said he was not killed by the tapn of the chief,
which had been communicated to the food by contact, he
would have been listened to with feelings of contempt for
%/ 1 On the custom of touching for chest and lungs, was called " the Mac-
^the King's-evil, see T. J. Pettigrew, donald's disease." We are told that
Superstitions connected with the History the faith of the people in the touch of a
and Practice of Medicine a?id Surgery Macdonald was very great. See Rev.
(London, 1844), pp. 117-154; W. E. Dr. Th. Bisset, "Parish of Logierait,"
H. Lecky, History of England in the Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scot-
Eighteenth Century (London, 1892), land, iii. 84.
i. 84-90; W. G. Black, Folk-medi- 2 "The idea in which this law [the
cine, p. 140 sqq. The power of healing law of taboo or tapu, as it was called
scrofula by the touch was claimed by in New Zealand] originated appears
the French as well as by the English to have been, that a portion of the
kings. The English kings were sup- spiritual essence of an atua or of a
posed to have inherited the power sacred person was communicated di-
from Edward the Confessor ; the rectly to objects which they touched,
French kings from St. Louis or Clovis. and also that the spiritual essence so
Down to the end of the eighteenth communicated to any object was
century it was believed in the High- afterwards more or less retransmitted
lands of Scotland that certain tribes to anything else brought into contact
of Macdonalds had the power of curing with it " (E. Shortland, Traditions and
a certain disease by their touch and Superstitions of the New Zealanders,
the use of a certain set of words. p. 102). Compare id., Maori Re-
LTence the disease, which attacked the ligion and Mythology, p. 25.
VOL. I Y
322
DANGERS OF SANCTITY
CHAP.
his ignorance and inability to understand plain and direct
evidence." l This is not a solitary case. A Maori woman
having eaten of some fruit, and being afterwards told that
the fruit had been taken from a tabooed place, exclaimed
that the spirit of the chief, whose sanctity had been thus
profaned, would kill her. This was in the afternoon, and
next day by twelve o'clock she was dead." An observer
who knows the Maoris well, says, " Tapu [taboo] is an awful
weapon. I have seen a strong young man die the same
day he was tapued ; the victims die under it as though
their strength ran out as water." 3 A Maori chief's tinder-
box was once the means of killing several persons ; for,
having been lost by him, and found by some men who used
it to light their pipes, they died of fright on learning to
whom it had belonged. So, too, the garments of a high
New Zealand chief will kill any one else who wears them.
A chief was observed by a missionary to throw down a
precipice a blanket which he found too heavy to carry.
Being asked by the missionary why he did not leave it on
a tree for the use of a future traveller, the chief replied that
" it was the fear of its being taken by another which caused
him to throw it where he did, for if it were worn, his tapu "
(that is, his spiritual power communicated by contact to
the blanket and through the blanket to the man) " would
kill the person." 4
No wonder therefore that the savage should rank his
human gods among what he regards as the dangerous classes
of society, and should impose upon them the same sort
of restraints that he lays on man -slayers, menstruous
women, and other persons whom he looks upon with a
certain fear and horror. For example, sacred kings and
1 Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha
Maori (London, 18S4), p. 96 sq.
2 W. Brown, New Zealand and its
Aborigines (London, 1845), p. 76.
For more examples of the same kind
see ibid. p. 77 sq.
3 E. Tregear, "The Maoris of New
Zealand," Jonrn. A nth rap. Inst. xix.
(1890), p. 100.
4 K. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui: or,
New Zealand and its Inhabitants? p.
164. Death from purely imaginary
causes occurs also not uncommonly
among the aborigines of Australia. A
native will die after the infliction of
even the most superficial wound if
only he believes that the weapon
which inflicted the wound had been
sung over, and thus endowed with
magical virtue. He simply lies down,
refuses food, and pines away. See
Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of
Central Australia, p. 537 Sll-
ii MOURNERS TABOOED 323
priests in Polynesia were not allowed to touch food with
their hands, and had therefore to be fed by others ; 1 and, as
we have just seen, their vessels, garments, and other property
might not be used by others on pain of disease and death.
Now precisely the same observances are exacted by some
savages from girls at their first menstruation, women after
childbirth, homicides, mourners, and all persons who have
come into contact with the dead. Thus for example among
the Maoris any one who had handled a corpse, helped to
convey it to the grave, or touched a dead man's bones, was
cut off from all intercourse and almost all communication
with mankind. He could not enter any house, or come into
contact with any person or thing, without utterly bedevilling
them. He might not even touch food with his hands, which
had become so frightfully tabooed or unclean as to be quite
useless. Food would be set for him on the ground, and he
would then sit or kneel down, and, with his hands carefully
held behind his back, would gnaw at it as best he could. In
some cases he would be fed by another person, who with
outstretched arm contrived to do it without touching the
tabooed man ; but the feeder was himself subjected to many
severe restrictions, little less onerous than those which were
imposed upon the other. In almost every populous village
there lived a degraded wretch, the lowest of the low, who
earned a sorry pittance by thus waiting upon the defiled.
Clad in rags, daubed from head to foot with red ochre and
stinking shark oil, always solitary and silent, generally old,
haggard, and wizened, often half crazed, he might be seen
sitting motionless all day apart from the common path or
1 W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, priest on his rounds (L. de Freycinet,
iv. 388. Ellis appears to imply that Voyage aittour du Monde, Historique,
the rule was universal in Polynesia, ii. Premiere Partie, p. 596). In Tonga
but perhaps he referred only to Hawaii, the rule applied to chiefs only when
of which in this part of his work he is their hands had become tabooed by
treating specially. We are told that touching a superior chief (Manner,
in Hawaii the priest who carried the Tonga Islands, i. 82 sq.). In New
principal idol about the country was Zealand chiefs were fed by slaves (A. S.
tabooed during the performance of this Thomson, The Story of New Zealand,
sacred office ; he might not touch any- i. 102) ; or they may, like tabooed
thing with his hands, and the morsels of people in general, have taken up their
food which he ate had to be put into his food from little stages with their mouths
mouth by the chiefs of the villages or by means of fern-stalks (R. Taylor,
through which he passed or even by the Te Ika a Maui, or New Zealand and
king himself, who accompanied the its Inhabitants, p. 162).
3^4
MO URNERS TA BOOED
CHAP.
thoroughfare of the village, gazing with lack-lustre eyes on
the busy doings in which he might never take a part. Twice
a day a dole of food would be thrown on the ground before
him to munch as well as he could without the use of his
hands ; and at night, huddling his greasy tatters about him,
he would crawl into some miserable lair of leaves and refuse,
where, dirty, cold, and hungry, he passed, in broken ghost-
haunted slumbers, a wretched night as a prelude to another
wretched day. Such was the only human being deemed fit
to associate at arm's length with one who had paid the last
offices of respect and friendship to the dead. And when, the
dismal term of his seclusion being over, the mourner was
about to mix with his fellows once more, all the dishes he
had used in his seclusion were diligently smashed and all the
garments he had worn were carefully thrown away, lest they
should spread the contagion of his defilement among others,1
just as the vessels and clothes of sacred kings and chiefs are
destroyed or cast away for a similar reason. So complete
in these respects is the analogy which the savage traces
between the spiritual influences that emanate from divinities
and from the dead, between the odour of sanctity and the
stench of corruption.
Among the Shushwap of British Columbia widows and
widowers in mourning are secluded and forbidden to touch
their own head or body ; the cups and cooking-vessels which
they use may be used by no one else. They must build
a sweat-house beside a creek, sweat there all night and
bathe regularly, after which they must rub their bodies
with branches of spruce. The branches may not be used
more than once, and when they have served their purpose
they are stuck into the ground all round the hut. No hunter
1 Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha
Maori (London, 1884), pp. 104-114.
The rule that corpse-bearers, mourners,
etc., might not touch food with their
hands would seem to have been universal
in Polynesia. See Cook, Voyages
(London, 1809), vii. 147 ; James
Wilson, Missionary Voyage to the
Southern Pacific Ocean, p. 363 ; W.
Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 141 sq.
note; G. Turner, Samoa, p. 145 ; W.
Yate, New Zealand, p. 85 ; G. F.
Angas, Savage Life and Scenes in
Australia and New Zealand, ii. 90 ;
Dieffenbach, Travels in Neiu Zealand,
ii. 104 sq. ; Dumont D'Urville, Voyage
autour du Monde et a la recherche de
La Perouse, ii. 530. The same rule
was observed in Fiji (Ch. Wilkes,
Narrative of the United States Explor-
ing Expedition, iii. 99 sq.), and by
some tribes in New Guinea (W. G.
Lawes, in Journal of the Anthropo-
logical Institute, viii. (1879), p. 370).
ii TABOOS OF MENSTRUATION 325
would come near such mourners, for their presence is unlucky.
If their shadow were to fall on any one, he would be taken
ill at once. They employ thorn bushes for bed and pillow,
in order to keep away the ghost of the deceased ; and thorn
bushes are also laid all around their beds.1 This last
precaution shows clearly what the spiritual danger is which
leads to the exclusion of such persons from ordinary
society ; it is simply a fear of the ghost who is supposed
to be hovering near them.
In general, we may say that the prohibition to use the
vessels, garments, and so on of certain persons, and the effects
supposed to follow an infraction of the rule, are exactly the
same whether the persons to whom the things belong are
sacred or what we might call unclean and polluted. As the
garments which have been touched by a sacred chief kill
those who handle them, so do the things which have been
touched by a menstruous woman. An Australian black-
fellow, who discovered that his wife had lain on his blanket
at her menstrual period, killed her and died of terror himself
within a fortnight.2 Hence Australian women at these times
are forbidden under pain of death to touch anything that
men use, or even to walk on a path that any man frequents.
They are also secluded at childbirth, and all vessels used
by them during their seclusion are burned.3 In Uganda
whatever a woman touches while the impurity of childbirth
or of menstruation is on her should be destroyed.4 No
Esquimaux of Alaska will willingly drink out of the same
cup or eat out of the same dish that has been used by a
woman at her confinement until it has been purified by
certain incantations.0 Amongst some of the Indians of
North America, women at menstruation are forbidden to
touch men's utensils, which would be so defiled by their
touch that their subsequent use would be attended by certain
1 Fr. Boas, in Sixth Report on the tralian Languages and Traditions,"
North-Western Tribes of Canada, p. 91 Joitrn. Anthrop. Inst. ii. (1873), p. 268.
sq. (separate reprint from the Report of 4 This I learned in a conversation
the British Association for 1890). with Messrs. Roscoe and Miller, mis-
2 Capt. W. E. Armit, " Customs of sionaries to Uganda, June 24th, 1897.
the Australian aborigines, " Joum. An- 5 Report of the International Polar
throp. Inst. ix. (18S0), p. 459. Expedition to Point Barrow, Alaska
3 W. Ridley, " Report on Aus- (Washington, 1885), p. 46.
326
TABOOS OF MENSTRUATION
chap.
mischief or misfortune.1 For instance, in some of the
Tinneh tribes girls verging on maturity take care that the
dishes out of which they eat are used by no one else. When
their first periodical sickness comes on, they are fed by their
mothers or nearest kinswomen, and will on no account touch
their food with their own hands. At the same time they
abstain from touching their heads with their hands, and keep
a small stick to scratch their heads with when they itch.
They remain outside the house in a hut built for the
purpose, and wear a skull-cap made of skin to fit very tight,
which they never lay aside till the first monthly infirmity is
over. A fringe of shells, bones, and so on hangs down from
their forehead so as to cover their eyes lest any malicious
sorcerer should harm them during this critical period." In
the islands of Mabuiag and Saibai, in Torres Strait, girls
at their first menstruation are strictly secluded from the sight
of men. In Mabuiag the seclusion lasts three months, in
Saibai about a fortnight. During the time of her separation
the girl is forbidden to feed herself or to handle food, which
is put into her mouth by women or girls told off to wait on
her.3 In Tahiti a woman after childbirth was secluded for
a fortnight or three weeks in a temporary hut erected on
sacred ground ; during the time of her seclusion she was
debarred from touching provisions, and had to be fed by
another. Further, if any one else touched the child at this
period, he was subjected to the same restrictions as the
mother until the ceremony of her purification had been
1 Alexander Mackenzie, J'oyages
from Montreal through the Continent
of North America, p. cxxiii.
2 Gavin Hamilton, " Customs of the
New Caledonian 'Women," Journal of
the Anthropological Institute, vii. ( 1878),
p. 206. Among the Nootkas of British
Columbia a girl at puberty is hidden
from the sight of men for several days
behind a partition of mats ; during her
seclusion she may not scratch her head
or her body with her hands, but she
may do so with a comb or a piece of
bone, which is provided for the purpose.
See Fr. Boas, in Sixth Report on the
North- Western Tribes of Canada, p. 41
(separate reprint from the Report of
the British Association for 1890).
Again, among the Shushwap of British
Columbia a girl at puberty lives alone
in a little hut on the mountains and is
forbidden to touch her head or scratch
her body ; but she may scratch her
head with a three-toothed comb and her
body with the painted bone of a deer.
See Fr. Boas, op. cit. p. 89 sq. In the
East Indian island of Serang a girl may
not scratch herself with her fingers the
night before her teeth are filed, but she
may do it with a piece of bamboo. See
J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige
rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua,
P- 137.
:i From notes kindly supplied to me
by Dr. C. G. Seligmann. On the
Mabuiag custom see below, ch. iv. § 1.
n TABOOS AT INITIATION 327
performed.1 Similarly in Manahiki, an island of the Southern
Pacific, for ten days after her delivery a woman was not
allowed to handle food, and had to be fed by some other
person.2 Among the Creek Indians a lad at initiation had
to abstain for twelve moons from picking his ears or scratch-
ing his head with his fingers ; he had to use a small stick for
these purposes. For four moons he must have a fire of his
own to cook his food at ; and a little girl, a virgin, might
cook for him. During the fifth moon any person might cook
for him, but he must serve himself first, and use one spoon
and pan. On the fifth day of the twelfth moon he gathered
corn cobs, burned them to ashes, and with the ashes rubbed
his body all over. At the end of the twelfth moon he sweated
under blankets, and then bathed in water, which ended the
ceremony. While the ceremonies lasted, he might touch no
one but lads who were undergoing a like course of initiation.3
Caffre boys at circumcision live secluded in a special hut,
and when they are healed all the vessels which they had
used during their seclusion and the boyish mantles which
they had hitherto worn are burned together with the hut.4
Once more, warriors are conceived by the savage to
move, so to say, in an atmosphere of spiritual danger which
constrains them to practise a variety of superstitious observ-
ances quite different in their nature from those rational
precautions which as a matter of course they adopt against
foes of flesh and blood. The general effect of these observ-
ances is to place the warrior, both before and after victory,
in the same state of seclusion or spiritual quarantine in
which, for his own safety, primitive man isolates his human
gods and other dangerous characters. Thus when the
Maoris went out on the war-path they were sacred or taboo
in the highest degree, and they and their friends at home
had to observe strictly many curious customs over and above
the numerous taboos of ordinary life. They became, in the
1 James Wilson, Missionary Voyage reproduced by A. S. Gatschett, in his
to the Southern Pacific Ocean, p. 354. Migration Legend of the Creek Indians,
2 G. Turner, Samoa, p. 276. i. 185 sq. (Philadelphia, 1854).
3 B. Hawkins, "The Creek Con- 4 L. Alberti, De Kaffers (Amster-
federacy," Collections of the Georgia dam, 1810), p. 76 sq. ; H. Lichten-
Historical Society, iii. pt. i. (Savannah, stein, Reisen im siidlichen Afrika,
1848), p. 78 sq. Hawkins's account is (Berlin, 1811-12), i. 427.
328
WARRIORS TABOOED
CHAP.
irreverent language of Europeans who knew them in the
old righting days, " tabooed an inch thick " ; and as for the
leader of the expedition, he was quite unapproachable.1
Similarly, when the Israelites marched forth to war they
were bound by certain rules of ceremonial purity identical
with rules observed by Maoris and Australian black-
fellows on the war - path. The vessels they used were
sacred, and they had to practise continence and a custom of
personal cleanliness of which the original motive, if we may
judge from the avowed motive of savages who conform to
the same custom, was a fear lest the enemy should obtain
the refuse of their persons, and thus be enabled to work
their destruction by magic." Among some Indian tribes of
North America a young warrior in his first campaign had to
conform to certain customs, of which two were identical with
the observances imposed by the same Indians on girls at
their first menstruation : the vessels he ate and drank out of
1
1 Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha
Maori (London, 1S84), pp. 96, 1145^.
One of the customs mentioned by the
writer was that all the people left in
the camp had to fast strictly while the
warriors were out in the field. This rule
is obviously based on the sympathetic
connection supposed to exist between
friends at a distance, especially at
critical times. See above, p. 27 sqq.
2 Deuteronomy xxiii. 9-14; I
Samuel xxi. 5. The rule laid down
in Deuteronomy xxiii. 10, II, suffices
to prove that the custom of continence
observed in time of war by the
Israelites, as by a multitude of savage
and barbarous peoples, was based on a
superstitious, not a rational motive.
The evidence on this subject is de-
cisive, but must be reserved for another
work. Here I will only mention that
the rule is often observed by warriors
for some time after their victorious
return, and also by the persons left at
home during the absence of the fight-
ing men. In these cases the observ-
ance of the rule evidently does not
admit of a rational explanation, which
could hardly, indeed, be entertained by
any one conversant with savage modes
of thought. For some examples of
these cases, see above, pp. 29, 31^., and
below, pp. 332^-.336>339- The other
rule of personal cleanliness referred to in
the text is exactly observed, for the reason
I have indicated, by the aborigines in
various parts of Australia. See (Sir)
George Grey, Journals, ii. 344 ; R.
Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria,
i. 165 ; J. Dawson, Australian Abori-
gines, p. 12 ; Beveridge, in Journal and
Proceedings of the Royal Society of
New South Wales, 1883, p. 69 sq.
Compare W. Stanbridge, " On the
Aborigines of Victoria," Transactions
of the Ethnological Society of London, i.
(186 1), p. 299; Fison and Howitt,
Kamilaroi and Kurnai, -p. 251; E.
M. Curr, The Australian Race, iii. 178
sq., 547. The same dread has resulted
in a similar custom of cleanliness in
Melanesia and Africa. See R. Parkin-
son, Im Bismarck- Archipel, p. 143 sq. ;
R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians, p.
203 note ; J. Macdonald, " Manners,
Customs, Superstitions, and Religions
of South African Tribes," Journal of the
Anthropological Institute, xx. (1891),
p. 131. Mr. Lorimer Fison has sent
me some notes on the Fijian practice,
which agrees with the one described by
Dr. Codrington.
II
WARRIORS TABOOED 329
might be touched by no other person, and he was forbidden
to scratch his head or any other part of his body with his
fingers ; if he could not help scratching himself, he had to
do it with a stick.1 The latter rule, like the one which
forbids a tabooed person to feed himself with his own
fingers, seems to rest on the supposed sanctity or pollution,
whichever we choose to call it, of the tabooed hands.2
Moreover, among these Indian tribes the men on the war-
path had always to sleep at night with their faces turned
towards their own country ; however uneasy the posture they
might not change it. They might not sit upon the bare
ground, nor wet their feet, nor walk on a beaten path if
they could help it ; when they had no choice but to walk on
a path, they sought to counteract the ill effect of doing so
by doctoring their legs with certain medicines or charms
which they carried with them for the purpose. No member
of the party was permitted to step over the legs, hands, or
body of any other member who chanced to be sitting or
lying on the ground ; and it was equally forbidden to step
over his blanket, gun, tomahawk, or anything that belonged
to him. If this rule was inadvertently broken, it became
1 Narrative of the Captivity and by a ceremony of consecration, during
Adventures of John Tanner (London, which he carried the horn of a black
1830), p. 122. deer or antelope wherewith to scratch
2 We have seen (pp. 326, 327) that himself if necessary (Satapatha-Brdh-
the same rule is observed by girls at mana, Bk. iii. 3.1, vol. ii. p. 33 sq. trans.
puberty among some Indian tribes of by J. Eggeling ; H. Oldenberg, Die
British Columbia and by Creek lads at Religion des Veda, p. 399). Amongst
initiation. It is also observed by the Macusis of British Guiana, when a
Kwakiutl Indians who have eaten woman has given birth to a child, the
human flesh (see below, p. 342). Among father hangs up his hammock beside
the Blackfoot Indians the man who was that of his wife and stays there till the
appointed every four years to take charge navel-string drops off the child,
of the sacred pipe and other emblems During this time the parents have to
of their religion might not scratch his observe certain rules, of which one is
body with his finger-nails, but carried a that they may not scratch their heads
sharp stick in his hair which he used or bodies with their nails, but must
for this purpose. During the term of use for this purpose a piece of palm-
his priesthood he had to fast and leaf. If they broke this rule, they
practise strict continence. None but think the child would die or be an
he dare handle the sacred pipe and invalid all its life (R. Schomburgk,
emblems (W. W. Warren, "History Reisen in Britisch -Guiana, ii. 314)-
of the Ojibways," Collections' of the We have seen (p. 85) that some
Minnesota Historical Society, v. (1885), aborigines of Queensland believe that
p. 68 sq.). In Vedic India the man who if they scratched themselves with their
was about to offer the solemn sacrifice fingers during a rain-making ceremony,
of soma prepared himself for his duties no rain would fall.
33o
WARRIORS TABOOED
CHAP.
the duty of the member whose person or property had been
stepped over to knock the other member down, and it was
similarly the duty of that other to be knocked down peace-
ably and without resistance. The vessels out of which the
warriors ate their food were commonly small bowls of wood
or birch bark, with marks to distinguish the two sides ; in
marching from home the Indians invariably drank out of
one side of the bowl, and in returning they drank out of the
other. When on their way home they came within a day's
march of the village, they hung up all their bowls on trees,
or threw them away on the prairie,1 doubtless to prevent
1 Narrative of the Captivity and
Adventures of John Tanner (London,
1830), p. 123. The superstition that
harm is done to a person or thing by
stepping over him or it is very widely
spread. Thus the Galelareese think
that if a man steps over your fishing-
rod or your arrow, the fish will not
bite when you fish with that rod, and
the game will not be hit by that arrow
when you shoot it. They say it is as if
the implements merely skimmed past
the fish or the game (M. J. van Baarda,
" Fabelen, Verhalen en Overleverin-
gen der Galelareezen,'' Bijdragen tot de
Taal- Land- e7i VolkenkundevanNeder-
landsch-Indic, xlv. (1895), P- 5 13).
Similarly, if a Highland sportsman saw
a person stepping over his gun or fish-
ing-rod, he presumed but little on that
day's diversion (John Ramsay, Scotland
a?id Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century,
ii. 456). When a Dacota had bad luck
in hunting, he would say that a woman
had been stepping over some part of
the animal which he revered (School-
craft, Indian Tribes, ii. 175). Some of
the aborigines of Australia are seriously
alarmed if a woman steps over them as
they lie asleep on the ground (E. M.
Curr, The Australian Race, i. 50).
Amongst many South African tribes it
is considered highly improper to step
over a sleeper ; if a wife steps over her
husband, he cannot hit his enemy in war ;
if she steps over his assegais, they are
from that time useless, and are given
to boys to play with (J. Macdonald,
Light in Africa, p. 209). Malagasy
porters believe that if a woman strides
over their poles, the skin will certainly
peel off the shoulders of the bearers
when next they take up the burden
(J. Richardson, in Antananarivo An-
nual and Madagascar Magazine, Re-
print of the First Four Numbers, p.
529 ; J. Sibree, The Great African
Island, p. 288 ; compare De Flacourt,
Histoire de la Grande Isle Madagascar
(Paris, 1658), p. 99). According to the
South Slavonians, the most serious
maladies may be communicated to a
person by stepping over him, but they
can afterwards be cured by stepping
over him in the reverse direction (F.
S. Krauss, Volksglaube iind religioser
Branch der Siidslaven, p. 52). The
belief that to step over a child hinders
it from growing is found in France,
Belgium, Germany, Austria, and
Syria : in Syria, Germany, and
Bohemia the mischief can be remedied
by stepping over the child in the
opposite direction. See L. F. Sauve,
Folk-lore des Hautes- Vosges, p. 226,
cp. p. 219 sq. ; E. Monseur, Le Folk-
lore Wallon, p. 39 ; A. Wuttke, Der
deutsche J'olksaberglaube,2 § 603 ;
J. W. Wolf, Beit rage zur deutschen
Mythologie, i. p. 208, § 42 ; J. A. E.
Kohler, Volksbrattch, etc., im Voigtlande,
p. 423 ; Kuhn und Schwartz, Nord-
deutscheSdgen, Marchen und Gebrduche,
p. 462, § 461 ; Grohmann, Aberglaubeu
und Gebrduche aus Bbhmen und Mah-
ren, p. 109, §§ 798, 799 ; Eijub Abela,
" Beitrage zur Kenntniss, aberglau-
bischer Gebrauche in Syrien," Zeit-
schrift des deutschen Palaesti?ja- Ver-
eins, vii. (1884), p. 81.
n WARRIORS TABOOED 331
their sanctity or defilement from being communicated with
disastrous effects to their friends, just as we have seen that
the vessels and clothes of the sacred Mikado, of women at
childbirth and menstruation, of boys at circumcision, and of
persons defiled by contact with the dead are destroyed or
laid aside for a similar reason. The first four times that an
Apache Indian goes out on the war-path, he is bound to
refrain from scratching his head with his fingers and from
letting water touch his lips. Hence he scratches his head
with a stick, and drinks through a hollow reed or cane.
Stick and reed are attached to the warrior's belt and to each
other by a leathern thong.1 The rule not to scratch their
heads with their fingers but to use a stick for the purpose
instead was regularly observed by Ojebvvays on the war-
path.2
If the reader still doubts whether the rules of conduct
which we have just been considering are based on super-
stitious fears or dictated by a rational prudence, his doubts
will probably be dissipated when he learns that rules of the
same sort are often imposed even more stringently on
warriors after the victory has been won and when all fear
of the living corporeal foe is at an end. In such cases
one motive for the inconvenient restrictions laid on the
victors in their hour of triumph is probably a dread of
the angry ghosts of the slain ; and that the fear of the
vengeful ghosts does influence the behaviour of the slayers is
often expressly affirmed. The general effect of the taboos
laid on sacred chiefs, mourners, women at childbirth, men on
the war-path, and so on is to seclude or isolate the tabooed
persons from ordinary society, this effect being attained by
a variety of rules, which oblige the persons to live in separate
huts or in the open air, to shun the commerce of the sexes,
to avoid the use of vessels employed by others, and so forth.
Now the same effect is produced by similar means in the
case of victorious warriors, particularly such as have actually
shed the blood of their enemies. In the island of Timor,
1 J. G. Bourke, On the Bonier with Bureau of Ethnology (Washington,
Crook (New York, 1891), p. 133; 1892)^.490.
id., in Folk-lore, ii. (1891), p. 453; '-' J. G. Kohl, Kitschi- Garni, ii.
id., in Ninth Annual Report of the 168.
2,12 MANSLAYERS TABOOED chap.
when a warlike expedition has returned in triumph bringing
the heads of the vanquished foe, the leader of the expedition
is forbidden by religion and custom to return at once to his
own house. A special hut is prepared for him in which he
has to reside for two months, undergoing bodily and spiritual
purification. During this time he may not go to his wife
nor feed himself ; the food must be put into his mouth by
another person.1 That these observances are dictated by
fear of the ghosts of the slain seems certain ; for from
another account of the ceremonies performed on the return
of a successful head-hunter in the same island we learn that
sacrifices are offered on this occasion to appease the soul of
the man whose head has been taken ; the people think that
some misfortune would befall the victor were such offerings
omitted. Moreover, a part of the ceremony consists of a
dance accompanied by a song, in which the death of the
slain man is lamented and his forgiveness is entreated.
" Be not angry," they say, " because your head is here with
us ; had we been less lucky, our heads might now have been
exposed in your village. We have offered the sacrifice to
appease you. Your spirit may now rest and leave us at
peace. Why were you our enemy ? Would it not have been
better that we should remain friends ? Then your blood
would not have been spilt and your head would not have been
cut off." 2 In some Dyak tribes men on returning from an
1 S. Miiller, Reizen en Onderzoe- slayers' own blood. Among some
kingen in den Indischen Archipel Brazilian tribes the man who put a
(Amsterdam, 1857), ii. 252. prisoner to death was scarified in his
2 J. S. G. Gramberg, "Eene maand breast, arms, legs, and other parts of
in de binnenianden van Timor," Ver- his body, because it was thought that he
handelingen van het Bataviaasch would die if his own blood were not
Genootschap van Kunsten en Weten- drawn after he had taken that of the
schappen, xxxvi. 208, 216 sq. Compare enemy. Seehery,ffistoriaJVavigatio/!s
H. Zondervan, "Timor en de Timor- in Brasilia;//, quae et America dicitur
eezen," Tijdsckrift van het Neder- (1586), p. 192; Pero de Magalhanes
landsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, de Gandavo, Histoire de la province de
Tweede Serie, v. (188S), Afdeeling, Sancta-Cruz (Paris, 1837), p. 139
meer uitgebreide artikelen, pp. 399, (Ternaux-Compans, Voyages, relations
413. Similarly Gallas returning from et memoires originaitx pour servir a
war sacrifice to the jinn or guardian Pkistoire de la decouverte de PAmiri-
spirits of their slain foes before they will que) ; Lafitau, Mceurs des Sauvages
re-enter their own houses (Ph. Paul- Anieriquains, ii. 305. So Orestes is
itschke, Ethnographie Nordost-Afrikas, said to have appeased the Furies
die geistige Ciillnr der Dandkil, Galla of his murdered mother by biting
ititd Somdl, pp. 50, 136). Sometimes off one of his fingers (Pausanias, viii.
perhaps the sacrifice consists of the 34. 3).
n MANSLAYERS TABOOED 333
expedition in which they have taken human heads are obliged
to keep by themselves and abstain from a variety of things
for several days ; they may not touch iron nor eat salt or fish
with bones, and they may have no intercourse with women.1
In the Toaripi or Motumotu tribe of south-eastern New
Guinea a man who has killed another may not go near his
wife, and may not touch food with his fingers. He is fed
by others, and only with certain kinds of food. These
observances last till the new moon." Among the tribes at
the mouth of the Wanigela River, in New Guinea, " a man
who has taken life is considered to be impure until he has
undergone certain ceremonies : as soon as possible after the
deed he cleanses himself and his weapon. This satisfactorily
accomplished, he repairs to his village and seats himself on
the logs of sacrificial staging. No one approaches him or
takes any notice of him. A house is prepared for him
which is put in charge of two or three small boys as
servants. He may eat only toasted bananas, and only the
centre portion of them — the ends being thrown away. On
the third day of his seclusion a small feast is prepared by
his friends, who also fashion some new perineal bands for
him. This is called ivi poro. The next day the man dons
all his best ornaments and badges for taking life, and sallies
forth fully armed and parades the village. The next day a
hunt is organised, and a kangaroo selected from the game
captured. It is cut open and the spleen and liver rubbed
over the back of the man. He then walks solemnly down
to the nearest water, and standing straddle-legs in it washes
himself. All the young untried warriors swim between his
legs. This is supposed to impart courage and strength to
them. The following day, at early dawn, he dashes out of
his house, fully armed, and calls aloud the name of his
victim. Having satisfied himself that he has thoroughly
scared the ghost of the dead man, he returns to his house.
The beating of flooring-boards and the lighting of fires is
also a certain method of scaring the ghost. A day later his
1 S. W. Tromp, " Uit de Salasila 2 Rev. J. Chalmers, "Toaripi,"
van Koetei," Bijdragen tot de Taal- Journal of "the Anthropological Institute,
Land- enVolkenkunde van Nederlandsch xxvii. (1898), p. 333.
Indie', xxxvii. (1888), p. 74.
334 MANS LAYERS TABOOED chap.
purification is finished. He can then enter his wife's
house." l
In this last custom the washing of the homicide in the
water is doubtless a mode of ridding him of his victim's
ghost. Similarly among the Basutos " ablution is specially
performed on return from battle. It is absolutely necessary
that the warriors should rid themselves, as soon as possible,
of the blood they have shed, or the shades of their victims
would pursue them incessantly, and disturb their slumbers.
They go in a procession, and in full armour, to the nearest
stream. At the moment they enter the water a diviner,
placed higher up, throws some purifying substances into the
current. This is, however, not strictly necessary. The
javelins and battle-axes also undergo the process of wash-
ing." 2 Nothing is here said of an enforced seclusion after
the ceremonial washing, but some South African tribes
certainly require the slayer of a very gallant foe in war to
keep apart from his wife and family for ten days after he
has washed his body in running water. He also receives
from the tribal doctor a medicine which he chews with his
food.3 A Zulu who has killed a man in battle is obliged to
perform certain purificatory ceremonies before he may return
to ordinary life. Amongst other things, he must be sure to
make an incision in the corpse of his slain foe, in order to
let the gases escape and so prevent the body from swelling.
If he fails to do so, his own body will swell in proportion
as the corpse becomes inflated.4 Among the Ovambos of
Southern Africa, when the warriors return to their villages,
those who have killed an enemy pass the first night in the open
fields, and may not enter their houses until they have been
cleansed of the guilt of blood by an older man, who smears
1 R. E. Guise, " On the Tribes Romans had also to bathe in running
inhabiting the Mouth of the Wanigela water before they might touch holy
River, New Guinea," Journal of the things (Virgil, Aen. ii. 719 sag.).
Anthropological Institute, xxviii. (1899), „ „ T , , . ,, „,,
r * y^' 3 Rev. T. Macdonald, "Manners,
2 r v tj r> t or.o c Customs, Superstitions, and Religions of
L>3.S3,llS, 1/16 ±j(lSlllQS. D. 2KO. OO ,-, . a r • ry *i n r 7 r , 1
.-, a- f , ;., south African Iribes, Journal of the
Caffres returning from battle are un- , ±1 . , ■■ 7 T ,-, , ,o
, , . ° , , , ., Anthropo/o'jical Institute, xx. (1091),
clean and must wash before they enter ->»
their houses (L. Alberti, De Kaffers, "' ^
p. 104). It would seem that after * Miss Alice Werner, in a letter to
the slaughter of a foe the Greeks or the author dated 25th September 1899.
ii MANSLAYERS TABOOED 335
them for this purpose with a kind of porridge.1 After the
slaughter of the Midianites the Israelitish warriors were
obliged to remain outside the camp for seven days : who-
ever had killed a man or touched the slain had to purify
himself and his captive. The spoil taken from the enemy
had also to be purified, according to its nature, either by fire
or water.2 Similarly among the Basutos cattle taken from
the enemy are fumigated with bundles of lighted branches
before they are allowed to mingle with the herds of the
tribe.3
The Arunta of Central Australia believe that when a
party of men has been out against the enemy and taken a
life, the spirit of the slain man follows the party on its
return and is constantly on the watch to do a mischief
to those of the band who actually shed the blood. It
takes the form of a little bird called the chichnrkna, and
may be heard crying like a child in the distance as it
flies. If any of the slayers should fail to hear its cry,
he would become paralysed in his right arm and shoulder.
At night-time especially, when the bird is flying over
the camp, the slayers have to lie awake and keep the
right arm and shoulder carefully hidden, lest^he bird should
look down upon and harm them. When once they have
heard its cry, their minds are at ease, because the spirit of
the dead then recognises that he has been detected, and can
therefore do no mischief. On their return to their friends,
as soon as they come in sight of the main camp, they begin
to perform an excited war-dance, approaching in the form of
a square and moving their shields as if to ward off something
which was being thrown at them. This action is intended
to repel the angry spirit of the dead man, who is striving to
attack them. Next the men who did the deed of blood
separate themselves from the others, and forming a line,
with spears at rest and shields held out in front, stand silent
and motionless like statues. A number of old women now
approach with a sort of exulting skip and strike the shields
of the men-slayers with fighting-clubs till they ring again.
They are followed by men who smite the shields with
1 H. Schinz, Dentsch - Siidwest- 2 Numbers xxxi. 19-24.
Afrika, p. 321. 3 Casalis, The Basutos, p. 25S .sv/.
336 MANSLAYERS TABOOED chap.
boomerangs. This striking of the shields is supposed to
be a very effective way of frightening away the spirit of the
dead man. The natives listen anxiously to the sounds
emitted by the shields when they are struck ; for if any
man's shield gives forth a hollow sound under the blow, that
man will not live long, but if it rings sharp and clear, he is
safe. For some days after their return the slayers will not
speak of what they have done, and continue to paint them-
selves all over with powdered charcoal, and to decorate their
foreheads and noses with green twigs. Finally, they paint
their bodies and faces with bright colours, and become free
to talk about the affair ; but still of nights they must lie
awake listening for the plaintive cry of the bird in which
they fancy they hear the voice of their victim.1
In the Washington group of the Marquesas Islands, the
man who has slain an enemy in battle becomes tabooed for
ten days, during which he may hold no intercourse with his
wife, and may not meddle with fire. Hence another has to
make fire and to cook for him. Nevertheless he is treated
with marked distinction and receives presents of pigs.2 In
the Pelew Islands, when the men return from a warlike
expedition in which they have taken a life, the young
warriors who have been out fighting for the first time,
and all who handled the slain, are shut up in the large
council -house and become tabooed. They may not quit
the edifice, nor bathe, nor touch a woman, nor eat fish ;
their food is limited to cocoa-nuts and syrup. They rub
themselves with charmed leaves and chew charmed betel.
After three days they go together to bathe as near as
possible to the spot where the man was killed.3 Among
the Natchez of North America young braves who had taken
their first scalps were obliged to observe certain rules of
abstinence for six months. They might not sleep with their
wives nor eat flesh ; their only food was fish and hasty-
pudding. If they broke these rules, they believed that the
soul of the man they had killed would work their death by
magic, that they would gain no more successes over the
1 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes (Frankfort, 1S12), i. 114 sq.
of Central Australia, pp. 493-495. 3 J. Kubary, Die soczalen Einrich-
2 Langsdorff, Reise um die Welt ti//iig-enderRela7/er(Berlin,i8S^),p.i^i.
II
MANSLAYERS TABOOED 337
enemy, and that the least wound inflicted on them would
prove mortal.1 When a Choctaw had killed an enemy and
taken his scalp, he went into mourning for a month, during
which he might not comb his hair, and if his head itched
he might not scratch it except with a little stick which he
wore fastened to his wrist for the purpose.2 This ceremonial
mourning for the enemies they had slain was not uncommon
amonsr the North American Indians. Thus the Dacotas, when
they had killed a foe, unbraided their hair, blackened them-
selves all over, and wore a small knot of swan's down on the
top of the head. " They dress as mourners yet rejoice." A
Thompson River Indian of British Columbia, who had slain
an enemy, used to blacken his own face, lest his victim's
ghost should blind him.4 When the Osages have mourned
over their own dead, " they will mourn for the foe just as if
he was a friend." 5 From observing the great respect paid by
the Indians to the scalps they had taken, and listening to the
mournful songs which they howled to the shades of their
victims, Catlin was convinced that " they have a superstitious
dread of the spirits of their slain enemies, and many concilia-
tory offices to perform, to ensure their own peace." b When
a Pima Indian has killed an Apache, he must undergo puri-
fication. Sixteen days he fasts, and only after the fourth day
is he allowed to drink a little pinole. During the whole time
he may not touch meat nor salt, nor look on a blazing fire,
nor speak to a human being. He lives alone in the woods,
waited on by an old woman, who brings him his scanty dole
of food. He bathes often in a river, and keeps his head
covered almost the whole time with a plaster of mud. On
the seventeenth day a large space is cleared near the village
and a fire lit in the middle of it. The men of the tribe
form a circle round the fire, and outside of it sit all the
warriors who have just been purified, each in a small
excavation. Some of the old men then take the weapons
1 " Relation des Natchez," Voyages i J. Teit, in Memoirs of the Ameri-
au Nord, ii. 24 (Amsterdam, 1737); can Museum of ATatural History, vol.
Lettres edifiantes et curieuses, vii. 26 ; ii. part iv. (April 1900), p. 357.
Charlevoix, Histoire de la Nouvelle 5 J. O. Dorsey, " An Account of the
France, vi. 186 sq. War Customs of the Osages," American
2 Bossu, Nouveaux Voyages aux Naturalist, xviii. (1884), p. 126.
Indes occidentals (Paris, 1768), ii. 94. s Catlin, North American Indians,
3 Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes, iv. 63. i. 246.
VOL. I Z
333 MANSLAYERS TABOOED chap.
of the purified and dance with them in the circle, after which
both the slayer and his weapon are considered clean ; but
not until four days later is the man allowed to return to his
family.1 The Apaches, the enemies of the Pimas, purify
themselves for the slaughter of their foes by means of baths
in the sweat - house, singing, and other rites. These
ceremonies they perform for all the dead simultaneously
after their return home ; but the Pimas, more punctilious on
this point, resort to their elaborate ceremonies of purification
the moment a single one of their own band or of the enemy
has been laid low.2 How heavily these religious scruples must
tell against the Pimas in their wars with their ferocious
enemies is obvious enough.
Far away from the torrid home of the Pima and Apaches,
an old traveller witnessed ceremonies of the same sort prac-
tised near the Arctic Circle by some Indians who had surprised
and brutally massacred an unoffending and helpless party
of Esquimaux. His description is so interesting that I will
quote it in full. "Among the various superstitious customs
of those people, it is worth remarking, and ought to have been
mentioned in its proper place, that immediately after my com-
panions had killed the Esquimaux at the Copper River, they
considered themselves in a state of uncleanness, which induced
them to practise some very curious and unusual ceremonies.
In the first place, all who were absolutely concerned in the
murder were prohibited from cooking any kind of victuals,
either for themselves or others. As luckily there were two in
company who had not shed blood, they were employed always
as cooks till we joined the women. This circumstance was
exceedingly favourable on my side ; for had there been no
persons of the above description in company, that task, I
was told, would have fallen on me ; which would have been
no less fatiguing and troublesome, than humiliating and
vexatious. When the victuals were cooked, all the
murderers took a kind of red earth, or oker, and painted all
the space between the nose and chin, as well as the greater
1 H. H. Bancroft, Native Races of (Washington, 1892), p. 475 sq.
the Pacific States, i. 553 ; Capt.
Grossman, cited in Ninth Annual 2 J. G. Bourke, On the Border with
Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Crook, p. 203.
II
MANSLA VERS TABOOED
339
part of their cheeks, almost to the ears, before they would
taste a bit, and would not drink out of any other dish, or
smoke out of any other pipe, but their own ; and none of
the others seemed willing to drink or smoke out of theirs.
We had no sooner joined the women, at our return from the
expedition, than there seemed to be an universal spirit of
emulation among them, vying who should make a suit of
ornaments for their husbands, which consisted of bracelets
for the wrists, and a band for the forehead, composed of
porcupine quills and moose - hair, curiously wrought on
leather. The custom of painting the mouth and part of
the cheeks before each meal, and drinking and smoking out
of their own utensils, was strictly and invariably observed,
till the winter began to set in ; and during the whole of that
time they would never kiss any of their wives or children.
They refrained also from eating many parts of the deer and
other animals, particularly the head, entrails, and blood ; and
during their uncleanness, their victuals were never sodden in
water, but dried in the sun, eaten quite raw, or broiled, when
a fire fit for the purpose could be procured. When the
time arrived that was to put an end to these ceremonies,
the men, without a female being present, made a fire at
some distance from the tents, into which they threw all
their ornaments, pipe-stems, and dishes, which were soon
consumed to ashes ; after which a feast was prepared, con-
sisting of such articles as they had long been prohibited
from eating ; and when all was over, each man was at
liberty to eat, drink, and smoke as he pleased ; and also to
kiss his wives and children at discretion, which they seemed
to do with more raptures than I had ever known them to do
it either before or since." 1
1 S. Hearne, Journey from Prince
of Wales's Fort in Hudson's Bay to the
Northern Ocean (London, 1795), pp.
204-206. The custom of painting the
face or the body of the manslayer,
which may perhaps be intended to
disguise him from the vengeful spirit
of the slain, is practised by other
peoples. Among the Borana Gallas,
when a war-party has returned to the
village, the victors who have slain a
foe are washed by the women with a
mixture of fat and butter, and their
faces are painted with red and white
(Ph. Paulitschke, Ethnographic Nor-
dost-Afrikas : die materielle Cultnr der
Danakil, Galla und Somal (Berlin,
1 893)5 P- 258)' Among the Angoni
of Central Africa, after a successful
raid, the leader calls together all who
have killed an enemy and paints their
faces and heads white ; also he paints
a white band round the body under
the arms and across the chest (British
34Q MANS LA VERS TABOOED chap.
Thus we see that warriors who have taken the life of
a foe in battle are temporarily cut off from free intercourse
with their fellows, and especially with their wives, and
must undergo certain rites of purification before they are
readmitted to society. Now if the purpose of their seclusion,
and of the expiatory rites which they have to perform is,
as we have been led to believe, no other than to shake
off, frighten, or appease the angry spirit of the slain man,
we may safely conjecture that the similar purification of
homicides and murderers, who have imbrued their hands in
the blood of a fellow-tribesman, had at first the same signifi-
cance, and that the idea of a moral or spiritual regeneration
symbolised by the washing, the fasting, and so on, was merely
a later interpretation put upon the old custom by men who
had outgrown the primitive modes of thought in which the
custom originated. The conjecture will be confirmed if we
can show that savages have actually imposed certain restric-
tions on the murderer of a fellow-tribesman from a definite
fear that he is haunted by the ghost of his victim. This we
can do with regard to the Omahas, a tribe of the Siouan stock
in North America. Among these Indians the kinsmen of a
murdered man had the right to put the murderer to death,
but sometimes they refrained from exercising their right in
consideration of presents which they consented to accept.
When the life of the murderer was spared, he had to observe
certain stringent rules for a period which varied from two to
four years. He must walk barefoot, and he might eat no warm
food, nor raise his voice, nor look around. He was com-
pelled to pull his robe around him and to have it tied at the
neck even in hot weather ; he might not let it hang loose or
fly open. He might not move his hands about, but had to
keep them close to his body. He might not comb his hair,
and it might not be blown about by the wind. When the
tribe went out hunting, he was obliged to pitch his tent
Central Africa Gazette, No. 86, vol. eats, and afterwards blackens his face
v. No. 6 (30th April 1898), p. 2). A with the ashes of the fire. After a
Koossa Caffre who has slain a man is time he may wash himself, rinse his
accounted unclean. He must roast mouth with fresh milk, and paint him-
some flesh on a fire kindled with wood self brown again. From that moment
of a special sort which imparts a bitter he is clean (H. Lichtenstein, Reisen
flavour to the meat. This flesh he im Siidlichen Africa, i. 418).
ii MANSLAYERS TABOOED 341
about a quarter of a mile from the rest of the people " lest
the ghost of his victim should raise a high wind, which might
cause damage." Only one of his kindred was allowed to
remain with him at his tent. No one wished to eat with him,
\for they said, " If we eat with him whom Wakanda hates,
/Wakanda will hate us." Sometimes he wandered at night
Icrying and lamenting his offence. At the end of his long
isolation the kinsmen of the murdered man heard his crying
and said, " It is enough. Begone, and walk among the crowd.
Put on moccasins and wear a good robe." 1 Here the reason
alleged for keeping the murderer at a considerable distance
from the hunters gives the clue to all the other restrictions
laid on him : he was haunted and therefore dangerous. The
ancient Greeks believed that the soul of a man who had just
been killed was wroth with his slayer and troubled him ;
wherefore it was needful even for the involuntary homicide
to depart from his country for a year until the anger of the
dead man had cooled down ; nor might the slayer return
until sacrifice had been offered and ceremonies of purification
performed. If his victim chanced to be a foreigner, the
homicide had to shun the native country of the dead man as
well as his own.2 The legend of the matricide Orestes, how
he roamed from place to place pursued by the Furies of his
murdered mother, and none would sit at meat with him, or take
him in, till he had been purified,3 reflects faithfully the real
Greek dread of such as were still haunted by an angry ghost.
Among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia, men
who have partaken of human flesh as a ceremonial rite
are subject for a long time afterwards to many restrictions
or taboos of the sort we have been dealing with. They
may not touch their wives for a whole year ; and during the
same time they are forbidden to work or gamble. For four
months they must live alone in their bedrooms, and when
they are obliged to quit the house for a necessary purpose,
1 J. Owen Uorsey, "Omaha Soci- sqq.\ Pausanias, ii. 31. 8. We may
ology," Third Annual Report of the compare the wanderings of the other
Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, matricide Alcmaeon, who could find no
1884), p. 369. rest till he came to a new land on
2 Plato, Laws, ix. pp. 865D-866A ; which the sun had not yet shone when
Demosthenes, Contra Aristocr. p. 643 he murdered his mother (Thucydides,
sq. ; Hesychius, s.v. d-n-eviaimcTjuds. ii. 102 ; Apollodorus, iii. 7. 5; Pau-
:; Euripides, Iphig. in Tanr. 940 sanias, viii. 24. 8).
342 CANNIBALS TABOOED
CHAT.
they may not go out at the ordinary door, but must use
only the secret door in the rear of the house. On such
occasions each of them is attended by all the rest, carrying
small sticks. They must all sit down together on a long
log, then get up, then sit down again, repeating this three
times before they are allowed to remain seated. Before
they rise they must turn round four times. Then they go
back to the house. Before entering they must raise their
feet four times ; with the fourth step they really pass the
door, taking care to enter with the right foot foremost. In
the doorway they turn four times and walk slowly into the
house. They are not permitted to look back. During the
four months of their seclusion each man in eating must use
a spoon, dish, and kettle of his own, which are thrown away
at the end of the period. Before he draws water from a
bucket or a brook, he must dip his cup into it thrice ; and
he may not take more than four mouthfuls at one time.
He must carry a wing-bone of an eagle and drink through
it, for his lips may not touch the brim of his cup. He also
wears a copper nail to scratch his head with, for were his
own nails to touch his own skin they would drop off. For
sixteen days after he has partaken of human flesh he may
not eat any warm food, and for the whole of the four months
he is forbidden to cool hot food by blowing on it with his
breath. At the end of winter, when the season of ceremonies
is over, he feigns to have forgotten the ordinary ways of
men, and has to learn everything anew. The reason for
these remarkable restrictions imposed on men who have
eaten human flesh is not stated ; but we may surmise that
fear of the ghost of the man whose body was eaten has at
least a good deal to do with them. We are confirmed in
our conjecture by observing that though these cannibals
sometimes content themselves with taking bites out of living
people, the rules in question are especially obligatory on
them after they have devoured a corpse. Moreover, the
careful treatment of the bones of the victim points to the
same conclusion ; for during the four months of seclusion
observed by the cannibals, the bones of the person on whom
they dined are kept alternately for four days at a time under
rocks in the sea and in their bedrooms on the north side of
\
ii NATURE OF TABOO 343
the house, where the sun cannot strike them. Finally the
bones are thrown into the sea.1
iThus in primitive society the rules of ceremonial purity
observed by divine kings, chiefs, and priests agree in many
respects with the rules observed by homicides, mourners,
women in childbed, girls at puberty, and so on. To us these
various classes of persons appear to differ totally in character
and condition ; some of them we should call holy, others we
might pronounce unclean and polluted. But the savage
makes no such moral distinction between them ; the concep-
tions of holiness and pollution are not yet differentiated in
his mind. To him the common feature of all these persons
is that they are dangerous and in danger, and the danger in
which they stand and to which they expose others is what we
should call spiritual or supernatural, that is, imaginary. The
danger, however, is not less real because it is imaginary ;
imagination acts upon man as really as does gravitation, and
may kill him as certainly as a dose of prussic acid. To
seclude these persons from the rest of the world so that the
dreaded spiritual danger shall neither reach them, nor spread
from them, is the object of the taboos which they have to
observe. These taboos act, so to say, as electrical insulators
to preserve the spiritual force with which these persons are
charged from suffering or inflicting harm by contact with the
outer world.2
1 Fr. Boas, " The social organiza- tapu. In Dacotan the word is 'wakan,
tion and the secret societies of the which in Riggs's Dakota-English Dic-
Kwakiutl Indians," Report of the U.S. tionary {Contributions to North Ameri-
National Museum for 1895, p. $37 sq. can Ethnology, vol. vii., Washington,
2 On the nature of taboo see my 1890, p. 507 sq.) is defined as ii spiritual,
article "Taboo" in the Encyclopedia sacred, consecrated ; -wonderful, incom-
Britannica, 9th edition, vol. xxiii. p. prehensible ; said also of women at the
15 sqq. ; W. Robertson Smith, Re- menstrual period." Another writer
ligion of the Semites,'2 pp. 148 sqq., in the same dictionary defines wakan
446 sqq. Some languages have re- more fully as follows: " A/ysterious ;
tained a word for that general idea incomprehensible ; in a peculiar state,
which includes under it the notions which, from not being" understood, it is
which we now distinguish as sanctity dangerous to meddle with ; hence the
and pollution. The word in Latin is application of this word to women at
sacer, in Greek, ayios. In Polynesian the menstrual period, and from hence,
it is tabu (Tongan), tapu (Samoan, too, arises the feeling among the
Tahitian, Marquesan, Maori, etc.), or wilder Indians, that if the Bible, the
kapu (Hawaiian). See E. Tregear, church, the missionary, etc., are
Maori- Polynesian Comparative Die- 'wakan,' they are to be avoided, or
tionary (Wellington, N.Z., 1891), s.v. shunned, not as being bad or dangerous,
344 IRON TABOOED chap.
It was unlawful to lay hands on the person of a Spartan
king ; 1 no one might touch the body of the King or Queen
of Tahiti ; 2 and no one may touch the King of Cambodia,
for any purpose whatever, without his express command. In
July 1874 the king was thrown from his carriage and lay
insensible on the ground, but not one of his suite dared to
touch him ; a European coming to the spot carried the
injured monarch to his palace.3 No one may touch the
King of Corea ; and if he deigns to touch a subject, the spot
touched becomes sacred, and the person thus honoured must
wear a visible mark (generally a cord of red silk) for the rest
of his life. Above all, no iron may touch the king's body.
In 1800 King Tieng-tsong-tai-oang died of a tumour in the
back, no one dreaming of employing the lancet, which would
probably have saved his life. It is said that one king
suffered terribly from an abscess in the lip, till his physician
called in a jester, whose pranks made the king laugh heartily,
and so the abscess burst.4 Roman and Sabine priests might
not be shaved with iron but only with bronze razors or
shears ; ° and whenever an iron graving-tool was brought
but as wakan. The word seems to be commonly secluded as dangerous,
the only one suitable for holy, sacred, among the Warundi of Eastern Africa
etc., but the common acceptation of it, she is led by her grandmother all over
given above, makes it quite misleading the house and obliged to touch every-
to the heathen." On the notion desig- thing (O. Baumann, Durch Massailand
nated by wakan, see also G. H. Pond, zur Nilqiielh (Berlin, 1894), p. 221),
" Dakota Superstitions," Collections of as if her touch imparted a blessing
the Minnesota Historical Society for instead of a curse.
the year 1867 (Saint Paul, 1867), p. 1 Plutarch, Agis, 19.
33 ; J. Owen Dorsey, in Eleventh 2 W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches,
Annual Report of the Bureau of Eth- jjj_ I02-
nology (Washington, 1894), P- 366 sq. \ j. Moura, Le Royaume du Cambodge
It is characteristic of the equivocal igg ._ ^
notion denoted by these terms that, J ,
whereas the condition of women in * Ch- Dallet, Histoire de VEglise de
childbed is commonly regarded by the Corie (Paris, l874), i- P- xxiv. sq. ;
savage as what we should call unclean, Griffis> Corea,the Hermit Nation, p. 219.
among the Ovaherero the same con- 5 Macrobius, Sat. v. 19. 13 ; Servius
dition is described as holy ; for some on Virgil, Aen. i. 448 ; Joannes
time after the birth of her child, the Lydus, De mensibus, i. 31. We have
Uvoman is secluded in a hut made already seen (p. 242) that the hair of
specially for her, and every morning the Flamen Dialis might only be cut
the milk of all the cows is brought to with a bronze knife. The Greeks
her that she may consecrate it by attributed a certain cleansing virtue to
touching it with her mouth. See H. bronze ; hence they employed it in
Schinz, Deutsch-Siidwest-Afrika, p. 167. expiatory rites, at eclipses, etc. See
Again, whereas a girl at puberty is Schol. on Theocritus, ii. 36.
II
IRON TABOOED 345
into the sacred grove of the Arval Brothers at Rome for the
purpose of cutting an inscription in stone, an expiatory
sacrifice of a lamb and a pig was offered, which was repeated
when the graving-tool was removed from the grove.1 As a
general rule iron might not be brought into Greek sanc-
tuaries.2 In Crete sacrifices were offered to Menedemus
without the use of iron, because the legend ran that Menede-
mus had been killed by an iron weapon in the Trojan war.3
The Archon of Plataeae might not touch iron ; but once a
year, at the annual commemoration of the men who fell at
the battle of Plataeae, he was allowed to carry a sword
wherewith to sacrifice a bull.4 To this day a Hottentot
priest never uses an iron knife, but always a sharp splint of
quartz, in sacrificing an animal or circumcising a lad.5
Amongst the Moquis of Arizona stone knives, hatchets, and
so on have passed out of common use, but are retained in
religious ceremonies.0 After the Pawnees had ceased to use
stone arrow-heads for ordinary purposes, they still employed
them to slay the sacrifices, whether human captives or
buffalo and deer.7 Negroes of the Gold Coast remove all
'£>"
1 Acta Fratrum Arvalium, ed. Hen- woman might wear golden ornaments
zen, pp. 12S-135; Marquardt, Rom- (Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptioiium
ischeStaatsverwaltung, iii.2 [Das Sacral- Graecarum, No. 388, p. 569), was prob-
wesen) p. 459 sq. ably subject to a similar exception and
2 Plutarch, Praecepta gereiidae rei- enforced by a similar penalty. Once
publicae, xxvi. 7. Plutarch here men- more, if the maidens who served Athena
tions that gold was also excluded from on the Acropolis at Athens put on gold
some temples. At first sight this is ornaments, the ornaments became
surprising, for in general neither the sacred, in other words, the property
gods nor their ministers have displayed of the goddess (Harpocration, s.v.
any marked aversion to gold. But a dpp-qcpopdv). Thus it appears that the
little inquiry suffices to clear up the pious scruple about gold concerned
mystery and set the scruple in its proper rather its exit from, than its entrance
light. From an inscription discovered into, the sacred edifice.
a few years ago we learn that no person 3 Callimachus, referred to by the Old
might enter the sanctuary of the Mis- Scholiast on Ovid, Ibis. See Calli-
tress at Lycosura wearing golden machus, ed. Blomfield, p. 216; Lobeck,
trinkets, unless for the purpose of dedi- Aglaophamus, p. 686.
eating them to the goddess ; and if any 4 Plutarch, Aristidrs, 21. This
one did enter the holy place with such passage was pointed out to me by my
ornaments on his body but no such friend Mr. W. Wyse.
pious intention in his mind, the trinkets 5 Theophilus Hahn, Tsitni -\\Goam,
were forfeited to the use of religion. the Supreme Being of the Khoi-Khoi,
See 'E^Tj/aepis apxcuoXoyiKr) (Athens, p. 22.
I S98), col. 249 ; compare P. Cavaddias, G J. G. Bourke, The Snake Dance of
Fouillesde Lycosoura (Athens, 1893), P- the Moquis of Arizona, p. 178 sq.
13. The similar rule, that in the pro- 7 G. B. Grinnell, Pawnee Hero
cession at the mysteries of Andania no Stories and Folk-tales, p. 253.
346 IRON TABOOED chap.
iron or steel from their person when they consult their fetish.1
The men who made the need-fire in Scotland had to divest
themselves of all metal.2 In the Highlands of Scotland the
shoulder-blades of sheep are employed in divination, being
consulted as to future marriages, births, deaths, and funerals ;
but the forecasts thus made will not be accurate unless the
flesh has been removed from the bones without the use of
any iron.3 In making the davie (a kind of Yule-tide fire-
wheel) at Burghead, no hammer may be used ; the hammer-
ing must be done with a stone.4 Amongst the Jews no iron
tool was used in building the Temple at Jerusalem or in
making an altar.5 The old wooden bridge {Pons Sublicius)
at Rome, which was considered sacred, was made and had to
be kept in repair without the use of iron or bronze.6 It
was expressly provided by law that the temple of Jupiter
Liber at Furfo might be repaired with iron tools.' The
council chamber at Cyzicus was constructed of wood
without any iron nails, the beams being so arranged that
they could be taken out and replaced.8 The late Raja
Vijyanagram, a member of the Viceroy's Council, and
described as one of the most enlightened and estimable of
Hindoo princes, would not allow iron to be used in the
construction of buildings within his territory, believing that
its use would inevitably be followed by small-pox and other
epidemics.0
This superstitious objection to iron perhaps dates from
that early time in the history of society when iron was still
1 C. F. Gordon dimming, In the Siidslaven, pp. 1 66- 170; W. Radloff,
Hebrides (ed. 1883), p. 195. Proben der Volkslitteratar der Tiir-
2 James Logan, The Scottish Gael kischen Stamme Sud-Sibiriens, Hi. 1 15,
(ed. Alex. Stewart), ii. 68 sq. note 1, compare p. 132.
3 R. C. Maclagan, M.D., "Notes 4 C. F. Gordon Cumming, In the
on folklore objects from Argyleshire," Hebrides, p. 226 ; E. J. Guthrie, Old
Folk-lore, vi. (1895), P- x57- The Scottish Customs, p. 223.
shoulder-blades of sheep have been used 5 1 Kings vi. 7 ; Exodus xx. 25.
in divination by many peoples, for ex- (i Dionysius Halicarn. Antiqnit.
ample by the South Slavs, Tartars, Roman, iii. 45, v. 24 ; Plutarch, Nu?na,
Kirghiz, and Calmucks, as well as 9 ; Pliny, Arat. Hist, xxxvi. 100.
by the Scotch. See M. MacPhail, 7 Acta Fratrum Arvalium, ed. Hen-
" Traditions, customs, and superstitions zen, p. 132; Corpus Inscriptionum
of the Lewis," Folk-lore, vi. (1895), Latinarum, i. No. 603.
p. 167 ; Dalyell, Darker Superstitions 8 Pliny, I.e.
of Scotland, p. 515 sqq. ; F. S. Krauss, 9 Indian Antiquary, x. (1SS1), p.
Volksglaube ttnd religioser Branch der 364.
1 1 DREA D OF IN NO VA TION 347
a novelty, and as such was viewed by many with suspicion
and dislike. For everything new is apt to excite the awe
and dread of the savage. " It is a curious superstition,"
says a pioneer in Borneo, " this of the Dusuns, to attribute
anything — whether good or bad, lucky or unlucky — that
happens to them to something novel which has arrived in
their country. For instance, my living in Kindram has
caused the intensely hot weather we have experienced of
late." : Some years ago a harmless naturalist was collecting
plants among the high forest-clad mountains on the borders
of China and Tibet. From the summit of a pass he gazed
with delight down a long valley which, stretching away as
far as eye could reach to the south, resembled a sea of
bloom, for everywhere the forest was ablaze with the
gorgeous hues of the rhododendron and azalea in flower.
In this earthly paradise the votary of science hastened to
install himself beside a lake. But hardly had he done so
when, alas ! the weather changed. Though the season was
early June, the cold became intense, snow fell heavily, and
the bloom of the rhododendrons was cut off. The inhabitants
of a neighbouring village at once set down the unusual
severity of the weather to the presence of a stranger in the
forest ; and a round-robin, signed by them unanimously,
was forwarded to the nearest mandarin, setting forth that the
snow which had blocked the road, and the hail which was
blasting their crops, were alike caused by the intruder, and
that all sorts of disturbances would follow if he were allowed
to remain. In these circumstances the naturalist, who had
intended to spend most of the summer among the mountains,
was forced to decamp. " Collecting in this country," he
adds pathetically, " is not an easy matter." 2 The unusually
heavy rains which happened to follow the English survey
of the Nicobar Islands in the winter of 1886- 1887 were
imputed by the alarmed natives to the wrath of the spirits
at the theodolites, dumpy-levellers, and other strange instru-
ments which had been set up in so many of their favourite
haunts ; and some of them proposed to soothe the anger of
1 Frank Hatton, jYort/i Borneo Ta-tsien-lu on the eastern borders of
(1886), p. 233. Tibet," Proceedings of the J?. Geograph-
- A. E. Pratt, "Two journeys to ical Society, xiii. (1 891), p. 341.
348
DREAD OF INNOVATION
C1IA1*.
the spirits by sacrificing a pig.1 According to the Orotchis
of Eastern Siberia, misfortunes have multiplied on them with
the coming of Europeans ; " they even go so far as to lay
the appearance of new phenomena like thunder at the door
of the Russians." 2 In the seventeenth century a succession
of bad seasons excited a revolt among the Esthonian
peasantry, who traced the origin of the evil to a water-mill,
which put a stream to some inconvenience by checking its
flow.3 The first introduction of iron ploughshares into
Poland having been followed by a succession of bad harvests,
the farmers attributed the badness of the crops to the iron
ploughshares, and discarded them for the old wooden ones.*
To this day the primitive Baduwis of Java, who live chiefly
by husbandry, will use no iron tools in tilling their fields.5
The general dislike of innovation, which always makes
itself strongly felt in the sphere of religion, is sufficient by
itself to account for the superstitious aversion to iron enter-
tained by kings and priests and attributed by them to the
gods ; possibly this aversion may have been intensified in
places by some such accidental cause as the series of bad
seasons which cast discredit on iron ploughshares in Poland.
But the disfavour in which iron is held by the gods and
their ministers has another side. Their antipathy to the
metal furnishes men with a weapon which may be turned
against the spirits when occasion serves. As their dislike
of iron is supposed to be so great that they will not
approach persons and things protected by the obnoxious
metal, iron may obviously be employed as a charm for
banning ghosts and other dangerous spirits. And it often
is so used. Thus when Scotch fishermen were at sea,
1 W. Svoboda, "Die Bewohner des
Nikobaren-Archipels," Internationales
Archiv fur Ethnographic, vi. (1893),
P- 13-
2 E. H. Fraser, "The fish-skin
Tartars," Journal of the China Branch
of the R. Asiatic Society for the year
1891-92, N.S., xxvi. p. 15.
3 Kreutzwald und Neus, Mythische
und inagische Lieder der Ehsten (St.
Petersburg, 1854), p. 113.
4 Alexand. Guaq;ninus, " De ducatu
Samogitiae," in Respnblica sive Status
Regni Poloniae, Litnaniae, Prussiae,
Livoniac, etc. (Elzevir, 1627), p. 276 ;
Johan. Lasicius, " De diis Samogi-
tarum caeteroruinque Sarmatum," in
Respnblica, etc. (ut supra), p. 294
(p. 84, ed. Mannhardt, in Magazin
herausgeg. von der Lettisch - Literiir
Gesellsch. bd. xiv.).
5 L. von Ende, " Die Baduwis
von Tava," Mittheilungen der anthro-
pologischen Gesellschaft in IVien, xix.
(1889), p. 10.
ii IRON AS A CHARM 349
and one of them happened to take the name of God in
vain, the first man who heard him called out " Cauld aim,"
t which every man of the crew grasped the nearest bit of
iron and held it between his hands for a while.1 So too
when he hears the unlucky word " pig " mentioned a Scotch
sherman will feel for the nails in his boots and mutter
' cauld aim." " The same magic words are even whispered
in the churches of Scotch fishing-villages when the clergy-
man reads the passage about the Gadarene swine.3 In
Morocco iron is considered a great protection against demons;
hence it is usual to place a knife or dagger under a sick
man's pillow.4 The Cingalese believe that they are con-
stantly surrounded by evil spirits, who lie in wait to do them
harm. A peasant would not dare to carry good food, such
as cakes or roast meat, from one place to another without
putting an iron nail on it to prevent a demon from taking
possession of the viands and so making the eater ill. No
sick person, whether man or woman, would venture out of
the house without a bunch of keys or a knife in his hand,
for without such a talisman he would fear that some devil
might take advantage of his weak state to slip into his body.
And if a man has a large sore on his body he tries to keep
a morsel of iron on it as a protection against demons.5
Among the Majhwar, an aboriginal tribe in the hill country
of South Mirzapur, an iron implement such as a sickle or a
betel cutter is constantly kept near an infant's head during
its first year for the purpose of warding off the attacks of
ehosts.6 On the Slave Coast of Africa when a mother sees
her child gradually wasting away, she concludes that a
demon has entered into the child and takes her measures
accordingly. To lure the demon out of the body of her
offspring, she offers a sacrifice of food ; and while the devil
is bolting it, she attaches iron rings and small bells to her
1 E. J. Guthrie, Old Scottish Customs, the lines are being baited, the line will
p. 149; Ch. Rogers, Social Life in Scot- certainly be lost.
land (London, 1886), iii. 218. 4 A. Leared, Morocco and the Moors
2 J. Macdonald, Religion and Myth, (London, 1876), p. 273.
p. 91. 5 Wickremasinghe, in Am Urquell,
3 W. Gregor, Folk-lore of the North- v. (1S94), p. 7.
East of Scotland, p. 201. The fisher- G W. Crooke, Tribes and Castes of
men think that if the word "pig," the North- Western Provinces and Ondh,
"sow," or "swine" be uttered while iii. 431.
35o IRON AS A CHARM chap.
child's ankles and hangs iron chains round his neck. The
jingling of the iron and the tinkling of the bells are supposed
to prevent the demon, when he has finished his meal, from
entering again into the body of the little sufferer. Hence
many children may be seen in this part of Africa weighed
down with iron ornaments.1 In India " the mourner who
performs the ceremony of putting fire into the dead person's
mouth carries with him a piece of iron : it may be a key or
a knife, or a simple piece of iron, and during the whole
time of his separation (for he is unclean for a certain time,
and no one will either touch him or eat or drink with him,
neither can he change his clothes 2) he carries the piece of
iron about with him to keep off the evil spirit. In Calcutta
the Bengali clerks in the Government Offices used to wear
a small key on one of their fingers when they had been chief
mourners." 3 In the north-east of Scotland immediately
after a death had taken place, a piece of iron, such as a nail
or a knitting-wire, used to be stuck into all the meal, butter,
cheese, flesh, and whisky in the house, " to prevent death
from entering them." The neglect of this precaution is said
to have been closely followed by the corruption of the food
and drink ; the whisky has been known to become as white
as milk.4 When iron is used as a protective charm after a
death, as in these Hindoo and Scotch customs, the spirit
against which it is directed is the ghost of the deceased.5
There is a priestly king to the north of Zengwih in
Burma, revered by the Sotih as the highest spiritual and
temporal authority, into whose house no weapon or cutting
instrument may be brought.6 This rule may perhaps be
explained by a custom observed by various peoples after a
death ; they refrain from the use of sharp instruments so
1 A. B. Ellis, The Yoruba-speaking Notes and Queries, iii. p. 202, § 846.
Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 113. On iron as a protective charm see also
2 The reader mayobserve how closely Liebrecht, Gervasius von Tilbury, p.
the taboos laid upon mourners resemble 99 sqq. ; id., Zitr-Volkskunde, p. 31 1 ;
those laid upon kings. From what has L. Strackerjan, Aberglaube und Sagen
gone before, the reason of the re- aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg, i. p.
semblance is obvious. 354 sq., § 233 ; Wuttke, Der deutsche
3 Panjab Notes and Queries, iii. Colksaberglaube,2 § 414 sq. ; Tylor,
p. 60, §282. Primitive Culture,2!. 140; Mannhardt,
4 W. Gregor, Folk-lore of the North- Baumkultus, p. 132 note.
East of Scotland, p. 206. 6 Bastian, Die Vblker des bstlichen
5 This is expressly said in Panjab Asien, i. 136.
n SHARP WEAPONS TABOOED 351
long as the ghost of the deceased is supposed to be near,
lest they should wound it. Thus after a death the Rou-
manians of Transylvania are careful not to leave a knife
lying with the sharp edge uppermost as long as the corpse
remains in the house, " or else the soul will be forced to ride
on the blade." 1 For seven days after a death, the corpse
being still in the house, the Chinese abstain from the use of
knives and needles, and even of chopsticks, eating their food
with their fingers.2 Amongst the Innuit or Esquimaux of
Alaska for four days after a death the women in the village do
no sewing, and for five days the men do not cut wood with an
axe.3 On the third, sixth, ninth, and fortieth days after the
funeral the old Prussians and Lithuanians used to prepare
a meal, to which, standing at the door, they invited the soul
of the deceased. At these meals they sat silent round the
table and used no knives, and the women who served up the
food were also without knives. If any morsels fell from
the table they were left lying there for the lonely souls that
had no living relations or friends to feed them. When the
meal was over the priest took a broom and swept the souls
out of the house, saying, " Dear souls, ye have eaten and
drunk. Go forth, go forth." 4 In cutting the nails and
combing the hair of a dead prince in South Celebes only the
back of the knife and of the comb may be used.5 The
Germans say that a knife should not be left edge upwards,
because God and the spirits dwell there, or because it will
cut the face of God and the angels.6 In Uganda, when the
hour of a woman's delivery is at hand, her husband carries
1 W. Schmidt, Das Jakr und (Frankfort and Leipsic, 1684), p. 187
seine Tage in Meimmg und Branch sq.\ J. Menecius, " De sacrifices et
der Romcinen ' Siebenbiirgens (Hermann- idolotria veterum Borussorum, Livo-
stadt, 1866), p. 40; E. Gerard, The num, aliarumque vicinarum gentium,"
Land beyond the Forest, i. 312. reprinted in Scriptores rerum Livonica-
2 J. H. Gray, China, i. 288. rum, vol. ii. (Riga and Leipsic, 1848),
3 W. H. Dall, Alaska and its Re- p. 391 sq.
sources, p. 146; id., in American 5 B. F. Matthes, Bijdragen tot de
Naturalist, xii. 7; id., in The Yukon Ethnologie van Zuid-Celebes, p. 136.
Territory (London, 1898), p. 146. e Tettau und Temme,Z^V Volkssagen
4 Jo. Meletius, " De religione et Ostpreussens, Litthauens und West-
sacrificiis veterum Borussorum," in De preussens, p. 285; Grimm, Deutsche
Russorum Muscovitarum et Tartaro- Mythologies iii. 454, cp. pp. 441,
rum religione, saa-rtciis, nuptianwi, 469; Grohmann, Aberglaubcn und
funerum ritu (Spires, 1582), p. 263; Gebrauche aus Bbhmen und Mdhren,
Hartknoch, Alt und neues Preussen p. 198, § 1387.
352 SHARP WEAPONS TABOOED chap.
all spears and weapons out of the house,1 doubtless in order
that they may not hurt the tender soul of the new-born
child. Early in the period of the Ming dynasty a professor
of geomancy made the alarming discovery that the spiritual
atmosphere of Kii-yung, a city near Nanking, was in a truly
deplorable condition owing to the intrusion of an evil spirit.
The Chinese emperor, with paternal solicitude, directed that
the north gate, by which the devil had effected his entrance,
should be built up solid, and that for the future the popula-
tion of the city should devote their energies to the pursuits
of hair-dressing, corn- cutting, and the shaving of bamboo-
roots, because, as he sagaciously perceived, all these professions
call for the use of sharp-edged instruments, which could not
fail to keep the demon at bay.'2 We can now understand
why no cutting instrument may be taken into the house
of the Burmese pontiff. Like so many priestly kings, he is
probably regarded as divine, and it is therefore right that
his sacred spirit should not be exposed to the risk of being
cut or wounded whenever it quits his body to hover invisible
in the air or to fly on some distant mission.
We have seen that the Flamen Dialis was forbidden to
touch or even name raw flesh.3 In the Pelew Islands
when a raid has been made on a village and a head carried
off, the relations of the slain man are tabooed and have to
submit to certain observances in order to escape the wrath
of his ghost. They are shut up in the house, touch no raw
flesh, and chew betel over which an incantation has been
uttered by the exorcist. After this the ghost of the
slaughtered man goes away to the enemy's country in
pursuit of his murderer.4 The taboo is probably based on
the common belief that the soul or spirit of the animal is in
the blood. As tabooed persons are believed to be in a
perilous state — for example, the relations of the slain man
are liable to the attacks of his indignant ghost — it is
especially necessary to isolate them from contact with spirits;
hence the prohibition to touch raw meat. But as usual the
1 Fr. Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha 3 Plutarch, Qitaest. Pom. I IO; Aulus
ins Herz von Afrika, p. 184. Gellius, x. 15. 12.
2 J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious 4 J. Kubary, Die socialen Einricht-
System of China, iii. 1045 (Leyden, ungen der Pelauer (Berlin, 18S5), p.
1897). 126 sq.
II
BLOOD TABOOED
353
taboo is only the special enforcement of a general precept ; in
other words, its observance is particularly enjoined in circum-
stances which seem urgently to call for its application, but
apart from such circumstances the prohibition is also observed,
though less strictly, as a common rule of life. Thus some of
the Esthonians will not taste blood because they believe that
it contains the animal's soul, which would enter the body of
the person who tasted the blood.1 Some Indian tribes of
North America, " through a strong principle of religion,
abstain in the strictest manner from eating the blood of any
animal, as it contains the life and spirit of the beast." These
Indians " commonly pull their new-killed venison (before
they dress it) several times through the smoke and flame of
the fire, both by the way of a sacrifice and to consume the
blood, life, or animal spirits of the beast, which with them
would be a most horrid abomination to eat." 2 Among the
Western Denes or Tinneh Indians of British Columbia until
lately no woman would partake of blood, " and both men and
women abhorred the flesh of a beaver which had been caught
and died in a trap, and of a bear strangled to death in a snare,
because the blood remained in the carcase." 3 Many of the
Slave, Hare, and Dogrib Indians scruple to taste the blood of
game ; hunters of the former tribes collect the blood in the
animal's paunch and bury it in the snow.4 Jewish hunters
poured out the blood of the game they had killed and covered
it up with dust. They would not taste the blood, believing
\/that the soul or life of the animal was in the blood, or actually
'Svas the blood.5 The same belief was held by the Romans,6
and is shared by the Arabs,7 and by some of the Papuan
tribes of New Guinea.s
1 F. J. Wiedemann, A us dem inneren
itnd iiussern Leben der Ehsten (St.
Petersburg, 1S76), pp. 448, 478.
2 James Adair, History of the Ameri-
can Indians (London, 1775), pp. 134,
1 17. The Indians described by Adair
are the Creek, Cherokee, and other
tribes in the soutk-east of the United
States.
3 A. G. Morice, "The Western
Denes, their Manners and Customs,"
Proceedings of the Canadian Institute,
Third Series, vii. (1888-89), p. 164.
VOL. I
4 E. Petitot, Monographie des Dcnc-
Dindjie' (Paris, 1876), p. 76.
6 Leviticus xvii. 10-14. The Hebrewv
word translated "life" in the English]
version of verse 11 means also "soul"/
(marginal note in the Revised Version)
Compare Deuteronomy xii. 23-25.
0 Servius on Virgil, Aen. v. 79 ;
compare id. , on Aen. iii. 67.
7 J. Wellhausen, A'este Arabischen
Heidentuines (Berlin, 1S87), p. 217.
8 A. Goudswaard, De Papoewd's Tan
de 6Vt7z>z7//'.«!>atf/ (Schiedam, 1 863), p. 77.
2 A
354 ROYAL BLOOD chap.
It is a common rule that royal blood may not be shed
upon the ground. Hence when a king or one of his family
is to be put to death a mode of execution is devised by which
the royal blood shall not be spilt upon the earth. About the)
year 1688 the generalissimo of the army rebelled against
the King of Siam and put him to death " after the manner
of royal criminals, or as princes of the blood are treated when
convicted of capital crimes, which is by putting them into a
large iron caldron, and pounding them to pieces with wooden{
pestles, because none of their royal blood must be spilt on!
the ground, it being, by their religion, thought great impiety]
to contaminate the divine blood by mixing it with earth." 1'
Other Siamese modes of executing a royal person are
starvation, suffocation, stretching him on a scarlet cloth and
thrusting a billet of fragrant sandal-wood into his stomach,'2
or lastly, sewing him up in a leather sack with a large stone
and throwing him into the river ; sometimes the sufferer's
neck is broken with sandal-wood clubs before he is thrown
into the water.3 When Kublai Khan defeated and took his
uncle Nayan, who had rebelled against him, he caused Nayan
to be put to death by being wrapt in a carpet and tossed to
and fro till he died, " because he would not have the blood
of his Line Imperial spilt upon the ground or exposed in the
eye of Heaven and before the Sun." 4 " Friar Ricold mentions
the Tartar maxim : ' One Khan will put another to death to
get possession of the throne, but he takes great care that the
blood be not spilt. For they say that it is highly improper
that the blood of the Great Khan should be spilt upon the
ground ; so they cause the victim to be smothered somehow
or other.' The like feeling prevails at the court of Burma,
where a peculiar mode of execution without bloodshed is
reserved for princes of the blood."5 In 1878 the relations
of Theebaw, King of Burma, were despatched by being
beaten across the throat with a bamboo.6 In Tonquin the
1 Hamilton's "Account of the East 3 Pallegoix, Description du Royaume
Indies," in Pinkerton's Voyages and Thai ou Siam, i. 271, 36$ sq.
Travels, viii. 469. Cp. W. Robertson 4 Marco Polo, trans, by Col. H.
Smith, Religion of the Semites,2 i. 369, Yule (2nd ed. 1875), i. 335.
note 1. 5 Col. H. Yule on Marco Polo, I.e.
- De la Loubere, Du Royaume de 6 Indian Antiquary, xx. (1891),
Siam, i. 317. p. 49.
II
NOT TO FALL ON GROUND
355
ordinary mode of execution is beheading, but persons of the
blood royal are strangled.1 In Ashantee the blood of none
of the royal family may be shed ; if one of them is guilty of
a great crime he is drowned in the river Dah.2 As the
blood royal of Dahomey may not be shed, offenders of the
royal family are drowned or strangled. Commonly they are
bound hand and foot, carried out to sea in a canoe, and
thrown overboard.3 In Madagascar the blood of nobles
might not be shed ; hence when four Christians of that class
were to be executed they were burned alive.4 Formerly when
a young king of Uganda came of age all his brothers were
burnt except two or three, who were preserved to keep up
the succession.5 Or a space of ground having been fenced
in with a high paling and a deep ditch, the doomed men
were led into the enclosure and left there till they died, while
guards kept watch outside to prevent their escape.6
The reluctance to shed royal blood seems to be only a
particular case of a general unwillingness to shed blood or at
least to allow it to fall on the ground. Marco Polo tells us
that in his day persons caught in the streets of Cambaluc
(Peking) at unseasonable hours were arrested, and if found
guilty of a misdemeanour were beaten with a stick. " Under
this punishment people sometimes die, but they adopt it in
order to eschew bloodshed, for their Bacsis say that it is an
evil thing to shed man's blood." 7 When Captain Christian
was shot by the Manx Government at the Restoration in 1 660,
the spot on which he stood was covered with white blankets,
that his blood might not fall on the ground.8 In West
1 Baron's "Description of the King-
dom of Tonqueen," in Pinkerton's Voy-
ages and Travels, ix. 691.
2 T. E. Bowdich, Mission from Cape
Coast Castle to Ashantee^Yjyci&cm, 1873),
p. 207.
3 A. B. Ellis, Ewe-speaking Peoples
■of the Slave Coast, p. 224, cp. p. 89.
4 Sibree, Madagascar and its People,
p. 430.
5 C. T. Wilson and R. W. Felkin,
Uganda and the Egyptian Soudan
(London, 18S2), i. 200.
6 This mode of executing the royal
princes of Uganda was described to me
by my friend the Rev. John Roscoe,
missionary to Uganda. There is an
Arab legend of a king who was slain
by opening the veins of his arms and
letting the blood drain into a bowl ; not
a drop might fall on the ground, other-
wise there would be blood revenge for it.
Robertson Smith conjectured that the
legend was based on an old form of
sacrifice regularly applied to captive
chiefs (Religion of the Semites,2 p. 369
note, cp. p. 418 note).
7 jTlarco Polo, i. 399, Yule's transla-
tion, 2nd ed.
8 Sir Walter Scott, note 2 to Peveril
of the Peak, ch. v.
35^
BLOOD NOT ALLOWED
CHAP.
Sussex people believe that the ground on which human blood
has been shed is accursed and will remain barren for ever.1
Amongst some primitive peoples, when the blood of a tribes-
man has to be spilt it is not suffered to fall upon the ground,
but is received upon the bodies of his fellow -tribesmen.
Thus in some Australian tribes boys who are being circum-
cised are laid on a platform, formed by the living bodies of
the tribesmen ; J and when a boy's tooth is knocked out as
an initiatory ceremony, he is seated on the shoulders of a
man, on whose breast the blood flows and may not be wiped
away.3 When Australian blacks bleed each other as a cure
for headache and other ailments, they are very careful not to
spill any of the blood on the ground, but sprinkle it on each
other.4 We have already seen that in the Australian
ceremony for making rain the blood which is supposed to
imitate the rain is received upon the bodies of the tribes-
men.'"' " Also the Gauls used to drink their enemies' blood
and paint themselves therewith. So also they write that the
old Irish were wont ; and so have I seen some of the Irish
do, but not their enemies' but friends' blood, as, namely,
at the execution of a notable traitor at Limerick, called
Murrogh O'Brien, I saw an old woman, which was his foster-
mother, take up his head whilst he was quartered and suck
up all the blood that ran thereout, saying that the earth was
not worthy to drink it, and therewith also steeped her face
and breast and tore her hair, crying out and shrieking most
terribly." ° After a battle in Home Island, South Pacific, it
was found that the brother of the vanquished king was
among the wounded. " It was sad to see his wife collect in
her hands the blood which had flowed from his wounds, and)
throw it on to her head, whilst she uttered piercing cries. 1
All the relatives of the wounded collected in the same
1 Charlotte Latham, "Some West
Sussex Superstitions," Folk-lore Record,
i. (1878), p. 17.
- Native Tribes of South Australia,
p. 230 ; E. J. Eyre, Journals of Ex-
peditious of Discovery into Central
Australia, ii. 335 ; ikough Smyth,
Aborigines of Victoria, i. 75 note.
3 Collins, Account of the English
Colony of New South Wales (London,
1798), p. 580.
4 Native Tribes of South Australia,
p. 224 sq. ; G. F. Angas, Savage Life
and Scenes in Australia and New
Zealand, i. no sq.
5 Above, p. 86.
G Edmund Spenser, View of the State
of Ireland, p. 101 (reprinted in Morley's
Ireland under Elizabeth and James the
First).
ii TO FALL ON GROUND 357
I manner the blood which had flowed from them, down evenT
I to the last drop, and they even applied their lips to theijutfA*'"
/ leaves of the shrubs and licked it all up to the last drop." 1 ^^
In the Marquesas Islands the persons who helped a woman
at childbirth received on their heads the blood which flowed
at the cutting of the navel-string ; for the blood might not
touch anything but a sacred object, and in Polynesia the
head is sacred in a high degree." In South Celebes at
childbirth a female slave stands under the house (the houses
being raised on posts above the ground) and receives in a
basin on her head the blood which trickles through the
bamboo floor.3 Among the Latuka of Central Africa the
earth on which a drop of blood has fallen at childbirth is
carefully scraped up with an iron shovel, put into a pot along
with the water used in washing the mother, and buried
.tolerably deep outside the house on the left-hand side.4 In
West Africa, if a drop of your blood has fallen on the ground,
you must carefully cover it up, rub and stamp it into the
soil ; if it has fallen on the side of a canoe or a tree, the
place is cut out and the chip destroyed.5 The intention of
these African customs may be to prevent the blood from
falling into the hands of magicians, who might make an evil
kise of it.
The unwillingness to shed blood is extended by some
peoples to the blood of animals. When the Wanika in
Eastern Africa kill their cattle for food, " they either stone
or beat the animal to death, so as not to shed the blood." c
Amongst the Damaras cattle killed for food are suffocated,
but when sacrificed they are speared to death.7 But like
most pastoral tribes in Africa, both the Wanika and Damaras
very seldom kill their cattle, which are indeed commonly
invested with a kind of sanctity/5 In killing an animal for
1 " Futuna, or Home Island and its
people," Journal of the Polynesian
Society, vol. i. No. 1 (April 1892), p.
43;
2 Max Radiguet, Les demurs sau-
vages (Paris, 1882), p. 175.
3 B. F. Matthes, Bijdragcn tot de
Ethnologic van Zuid-Celebes, p. 53.
4 Fr. Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha
ins Herz von Afrika, p. 795.
5 Miss Mary H. Kingsley, Travels
in West Africa, pp. 440, 447.
G Lieut. Emery, in Journal of the R.
Geographical Society, iii. 282.
7 Ch. Andersson, Lake Ngami
(London, 1856), p. 224.
8 Ch. New, Life, Wanderings, and
Labours in Eastern Africa, p. 124 ;
Francis Galton, "Domestication of
Animals," Transactions of the Ethnolog.
35«
SANCTITY OF BLOOD
CHAT.
food the Easter Islanders do not shed its blood, but stun it
or suffocate it in smoke.1 When the natives of San Cristoval,
one of the Solomon Islands, sacrifice a pig to a ghost in a
sacred place, they take great care that the blood shall not
fall on the ground ; so they place the animal in a large bowl
and cut it up there.2
The explanation of the reluctance to shed blood on the
ground is probably to be found in the belief that the soul is
in the blood, and that therefore any ground on which it may
fall necessarily becomes taboo or sacred.3 In New Zealand
anything upon which even a drop of a high chief's blood
chances to fall becomes taboo or sacred to him. For
instance, a party of natives having come to visit a chief in a
fine new canoe, the chief got into it, but in doing so a splinter
entered his foot, and the blood trickled on the canoe, which
at once became sacred to him. The owner jumped out,
dragged the canoe ashore opposite the chief's house, and left
it there. Again, a chief in entering a missionary's house
knocked his head against a beam, and the blood flowed.
The natives said that in former times the house would have
belonged to the chief.4 As usually happens with taboos of
universal application, the prohibition to spill the blood of a
tribesman on the ground applies with peculiar stringency to
chiefs and kings, and is observed in their case long after it
has ceased to be observed in the case of others.
We have seen that the Flamen Dialis was not allowed to
walk under a trellised vine.5 The reason for this prohibition
was perhaps as follows. It has been shown that plants are
considered as animate beings which bleed when cut, the red
juice which exudes from some of them being regarded as the
blood of the plant.6 The juice of the grape is therefore
Soc. of London, N.S., iii. (1S65), p. 135.
On the original sanctity of domestic ani-
mals see, above all, W.Robertson Smith,
The. Religion of the Semites? pp. 280
s,/,/., 295 sy,j.
1 L. Linton Palmer, " A Visit to
Easter Island, "fount. A'. Geographical
Society, xl. (1870), p. 171.
2 R. H. Codrington, The /Melanes-
ia us, p. 129.
3 Combined with, or perhaps some-
times independent of this belief may be
a fear lest the blood should be used by
magicians to work harm to the person
from whose veins it flowed. This is
perhaps the motive of the African
customs noted above (p. 357).
4 R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui, or
New Zealand and its Inhabitants,'1 p.
194 sq.
5 Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 112;
Aulus Gellius, x. 15. 13.
8 Above, p. 173.
n WINE TREATED AS BLOOD 359
naturally conceived as the blood of the vine.1 And since,
as we have just seen, the soul is often believed to be in the
(blood, the juice of the grape is regarded as the soul, or as
[containing the soul, of the vine. This belief is strengthened
[by the intoxicating effects of wine. For, according to
^j primitive notions, all abnormal mental states, such as intoxi-
1 cation or madness, are caused by the entrance of a spirit into
\ the person ; such mental states, in other words, are accounted
^> ->forms of possession or inspiration. Wine, therefore, is con-
sidered on two distinct grounds as a spirit or containing a
► spirit ; first because, as a red juice, it is identified with the
[blood of the plant, and second because it intoxicates or
iinspires. Therefore if the Flamen Dialis had walked under
a trellised vine, the spirit of the vine, embodied in the
clusters of grapes, would have been immediately over his
head and might have touched it, which for a person like him
in a state of permanent taboo 2 would have been highly
dangerous. This interpretation of the prohibition will be
)made probable if we can show, first, that wine has been
factually viewed by some peoples as blood, and intoxication
(as inspiration produced by drinking the blood ; and, second,
[that it is often considered dangerous, especially for tabooed
/persons, to have either blood or a living person over their
neads.
With regard to the first point, we are informed by
Plutarch that of old the Egyptian kings neither drank wine
nor offered it in libations to the gods, because they held it
to be the blood of beings who had once fought against the
gods, the vine having sprung from their rotting bodies ;
and the frenzy of intoxication was explained by the sup-
position that the drunken man was filled with the blood of
the enemies of the gods.3 The Aztecs regarded pulque or
the wine of the country as bad, on account of the wild deeds
which men did under its influence. But these wild deeds
were believed to be the acts, not of the drunken man, but of
the wine-god by whom he was possessed and inspired ; and
1 Cp. W. Robertson Smith, Religion myth apparently akin to this has been
of the Semites,11 p. 230. preserved in some native Egyptian
'-' " Dialis cotidie feriatus est," Aulas writings. See Ad. Erman, Aegypten
Gellius, x. 15. 16. tmd aegyptisches Lebenim Altertum,-p.
3 Plutarch, /sis et Osiris, 6. A 364.
360 INSPIRATION BY WINE chap.
so seriously was this theory of inspiration held that if any
one spoke ill of or insulted a tipsy man, he was liable to be
punished for disrespect to the wine-god incarnate in his
votary. Hence, says Sahagun, it was believed, not without
ground, that the Indians intoxicated themselves on purpose
to commit with impunity crimes for which they would
certainly have been punished if they had committed them
sober.1 Thus it appears that on the primitive view intoxica-
tion or the inspiration produced by wine is exactly parallel
to the inspiration produced by drinking the blood of animals.2
The soul or life is in the blood, and wine is the blood of the
vine. Hence whoever drinks the blood of an animal is
inspired with the soul of the animal or of the god, who, as
we have seen,3 is often supposed to enter into the animal
before it is slain ; and whoever drinks wine drinks the blood,
and so receives into himself the soul or spirit of the god of
the vine.
With regard to the second point, the fear of passing
under blood or under a living person, we are told that some
of the Australian blacks have a dread of passing under a
leaning tree or even under the rails of a fence. The reason
they give is that a woman may have been upon the tree or
fence, and some blood from her may have fallen on it and
might fall from it on them.4 In Ugi, one of the Solomon
Islands, a man will never, if he can help it, pass under a tree
which has fallen across the path, for the reason that a woman
may have stepped over it before him.5 Amongst the Karens
of Burma " going under a house, especially if there are
females within, is avoided ; as is also the passing under
trees of which the branches extend downwards in a particular
direction, and the butt-end of fallen trees, etc." 6 The
Siamese think it unlucky to pass under a rope on which
1 Bernardino de Sahagun, Histoire 4 E. M. Curr, The Australian Race
gdnerale des choses de la Nonvelle- (Melbourne and London, 1887), iii.
Espagne, traduite par Jourdanet et 179.
Simeon (Paris, 1SS0), p. 46 sq. The - v c n ™ c .
native Mexican wine {pulque) is made T , H/ B" ^PPy, The Solomon
from the sap of the great aloe. See 7f"f aml t1lClr Natwes (London>
E.J. Payne, History of the New World Ib87'' P- 4I"
called America, i. 374 sqq. 6 E. B. Cross, "On the Karens,"
2 See above, p. 12,2, sqq. Journal of the American Oriental
3 P. 135 sf. Society, iv. (1854), p. 312.
II
FEAR OF WOMEN'S BLOOD
361
women's clothes are hung, and to avert evil consequences
the person who has done so must build a chapel to the
earth-spirit.1
Probably in all such cases the rule is based on a fear of
being brought into contact with blood, especially the blood
of women. From a like fear a Maori will never lean his
back against the wall of a native house.2 For the blood of
women is believed to have disastrous effects upon males.
The Aruntas of Central Australia believe that a draught of
woman's blood would kill the strongest man.3 In the
Encounter Bay tribe of South Australia boys are warned
that if they see the blood of women they will early become
gray-headed and their strength will fail prematurely.4 Men
of the Booandik tribe think that if they see the blood of
their women they will not be able to fight against their
enemies and will be killed ; if the sun dazzles their eyes at
a fight, the first woman they afterwards meet is sure to get
a' blow from their club.5 In the island of Wetar it is
thought that if a man or a lad comes upon a woman's blood
he will be unfortunate in war and other undertakings, and
that any precautions he may take to avoid the misfortune
will be vain.6 The people of Ceram also believe that men
who see women's blood will be wounded in battle.' Similarly
the Ovaherero or Damaras of South Africa think that if they
see a lying-in woman shortly after childbirth they will
become weaklings and will be shot when they go to war.8
It is an Esthonian belief that men who see women's blood
will suffer from an eruption on the skin.9 A Fan negro
told Miss Kingsley that a young man in his village, who
was so weak that he could hardly crawl about, had fallen
1 Bastian, Die Viilker des bstlichen
Asien, iii. 230.
2 For the reason, see Shortland,
Traditions and Superstitions of the
New Zea/anders, pp. 112 sq., 292;
E. Tregear, "The Maoris of New
Zealand," Journal of the Anthropo-
logical Institute, xix. (1890), p. 118.
3 F. J. Gillen in Report of the Horn
Scientific Expedition to Central Aus-
tralia, pt. iv. p. 182.
4 Native Tribes of South Australia,
p. 186.
5 Mrs. James Smith, The Booandik
Tribe, p. 5.
6 Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige
rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p.
7 Riedel, op. cit. p. 139, compare
p. 209.
8 E. Dannert, " Customs of the
Ovaherero at the Birth of a Child,"
(South African) Folk-lore Journal, ii.
(1880), p. 63.
9 F. J. Wiedemann, A us dew innern
und ciussern Leben der Ehsten, p. 475.
362
SANCTITY OF THE HEAD
CHAP.
into this state through seeing the blood of a woman who
had been killed by a falling tree. " The underlying idea\
regarding blood is of course the old one that the blood is
the life. The life in Africa means a spirit, hence the
liberated blood is the liberated spirit, and liberated spirits
are always whipping into people who do not want them. In
the case of the young Fan, the opinion held was that the
weak spirit of the woman had got into him." x
Again, the reason for not passing under dangerous
objects, like a vine or women's blood, is a fear that they
may come in contact with the head ; for among many
peoples the head is peculiarly sacred. The special sanctity
attributed to it is sometimes explained by a belief that it is
the seat of a spirit which is very sensitive to injury or dis-
respect. Thus the Yorubas of the Slave Coast hold that
every man has three spiritual inmates, of whom the first,
called Olori, dwells in the head and is the man's protector,
guardian, and guide. Offerings are made to this spirit, chiefly
of fowls, and some of the blood mixed with palm-oil is rubbed
on the forehead.2 The Karens of Burma suppose that a
being called the tso resides in the upper part of the head,
and while it retains its seat no harm can befall the person
from the efforts of the seven KelaJis, or personified passions.
" But if the tso becomes heedless or weak certain evil to the
person is the result. Hence the head is carefully attended
to, and all possible pains are taken to provide such dress
and attire as will be pleasing to the tso." 3 The Siamese
think that a spirit called khuan or kwun dwells in the human
head, of which it is the guardian spirit. The spirit must be
carefully protected from injury of every kind ; hence the act
of shaving or cutting the hair is accompanied with many
ceremonies. The kwun is very sensitive on points of honour,
1 Miss Mary H. Kingsley, Travels
hi West Africa, p. 447. Conversely
among the Central Australian tribes
women are never allowed to witness
the drawing of blood from men, which
is often done for purposes of decoration ;
and when a quarrel has taken place and
men's blood has been spilt in the pres-
ence of women, it is usual for the man
whose blood has been shed to perform a
ceremony connected with his own or his
father or mother's totem. See Spencer
and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central
Australia, p. 463.
2 A. B. Ellis, The Yoruba-speaking
Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 125 sq.
3 E. B. Cross, "On the Karens,"
Journal of the American Oriental
Society, iv. (1854), p. 311 sq.
ii SANCTITY OF THE HEAD 363
and would feel mortally insulted if the head in which he
resides were touched by the hand of a stranger. When Dr.
Bastian, in conversation with a brother of the king of Siam,
raised his hand to touch the prince's skull in order to illus-
trate some medical remarks he was making, a sullen and
threatening murmur bursting from the lips of the crouching
courtiers warned him of the breach of etiquette he had com-
mitted, for in Siam there is no greater insult to a man of rank
than to touch his head. If a Siamese touch the head of
another with his foot, both of them must build chapels to the
earth-spirit to avert the omen. Nor does the guardian spirit
of the head like to have the hair washed too often ; it might
injure or incommode him. It was a grand solemnity when
the king of Burmah's head was washed with water taken
from the middle of the river. Whenever the native professor,
from whom Dr. Bastian took lessons in Burmese at Mandalay,
had his head washed, which took place as a rule once a
month, he was generally absent for three days together, that
time being consumed in preparing for, and recovering from,
the operation of head-washing. Dr. Bastian's custom of
washing his head daily gave rise to much remark.1 The
head of the king of Persia was cleaned only once a year, on
his birthday.2 Roman women washed their heads annually
on the thirteenth of August.3
Again, the Burmese think it an indignity to have any
one, especially a woman, over their heads, and for this
reason Burmese houses have never more than one story.
The houses are raised on posts above the ground, and
whenever anything fell through the floor Dr. Bastian had
always difficulty in persuading a servant to fetch it from
under the house. In Rangoon a priest, summoned to the
bedside of a sick man, climbed up a ladder and got in at
the window rather than ascend the staircase, to reach which
he must have passed under a gallery. A pious Burman of
1 Bastian, Die Volker des bstlichen Shuckburgh.
Asien, ii. 256, iii. 71, 230, 235 sq. 3 Plutarch, Quaestiones Romanae,
The spirit is called kwun by E. Young 100. Plutarch's words (fidXiara pv-
( The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe, p. Trreadai rets Ke0a\as /cat Kadaipeiv ewi-
75 st///. ). See below, p. 374 sq. T7]8euovai) leave room to hope that the
2 Herodotus, ix. 1 10. This passage ladies did not strictly confine these
was pointed out to me by Mr. E. S. ablutions to one day in the year.
364 SANCTITY OF THE HEAD chap.
Rangoon, finding some images of Buddha in a ship's cabin,
offered a high price for them, that they might not be degraded
by sailors walking over them on the deck.1 Formerly in
Siam no person -might cross a bridge while his superior in
rank was passing underneath, nor might he walk in a room
above one in which his superior was sitting or lying.2 The
Cambodians esteem it a grave offence to touch a man's
head ; some of them will not enter a place where anything
whatever is suspended over their heads ; and the meanest
Cambodian would never consent to live under an inhabited
room. Hence the houses are built of one story only ; and
even the Government respects the prejudice by never placing
a prisoner in the stocks under the floor of a house, though
the houses are raised high above the ground.3 The same
superstition exists amongst the Malays ; for an early
traveller reports that in Java people " wear nothing on their
heads, and say that nothing must be on their heads . . .
and if any person were to put his hand upon their head they
would kill him ; and they do not build houses with storeys,
in order that they may not walk over each other's heads." 4
In Uganda no person belonging to the king's totem clan
was allowed to get on the top of the palace to roof it, for
that would have been regarded as equivalent to getting on
the top of the king. Hence the palace had to be roofed by
men of a different clan from the king'.5
o
1 Bastian, op. cit. ii. 150; Sanger- totem clan. Among the totems of
mano, Description of the Burmese Em- the clans are the buffalo, sheep,
pire (Rangoon, 1885), p. 131 ; C. F. S. grasshopper, crocodile, otter, beaver,
Forbes, British Burma, p. 334; Shway and lizard. See R. P. Ashe, Two
Yoe, The Bur man, i. 91. Kings of Uganda (London, 1S89),
2 E. Young, The Kingdom of the p. 85 ; Fr. Stuhlmann, A/it Emin
Yellow Robe (Westminster, 1898), p. Fascha ins Herz von Afrika, p. 190;
I31- L. Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa,
:; J. Moura, Le Royaume du Cam- p. 443. Further particulars as to the
bodge, i. 178, 388. totemism of the Waganda were supplied
4 Duarte Barbosa, Descriplioii of the to me by Messrs. Roscoe and Miller.
Coasts of East Africa and Malabar in All the totems seem to be animals —
the beginning of the Sixteenth Century beasts, birds, fish, or insects. Mr.
(Hakluyt Society, 1866), p. 197. Roscoe did not remember any plant or
0 This I learned in conversation heavenly body used as a totem. A
with Messrs. Roscoe and Miller, mis- man will not kill or eat his own totem,
sionaries to Uganda. The system of but does not object to other people
totemism exists in full force in Uganda. doing so. The rule of exogamy applies
No man will eat his totem animal to sexual intercourse as well as to
or marry a woman of his own marriage and is very strictly observed,
II
SANCTITY OF THE HEAD 365
The same superstition as to the head is found in full
force throughout Polynesia. Thus of Gattanewa, a Marquesan
chief, it is said that " to touch the top of his head, or any-
thing which had been on his head, was sacrilege. To pass
over his head was an indignity never to be forgotten.
Gattanewa, nay, all his family, scorned to pass a gateway
which is ever closed, or a house with a door ; all must be
as open and free as their unrestrained manners. He would
pass under nothing that had been raised by the hand of
man, if there was a possibility of getting round or over it.
Often have I seen him walk the whole length of our barrier,
in preference to passing between our water-casks ; and at
the risk of his life scramble over the loose stones of a wall,
rather than go through the gateway." : Marquesan women
have been known to refuse to go on the decks of ships for
fear of passing over the heads of chiefs who might be below.2
The son of a Marquesan high priest has been seen to roll
on the ground in an agony of rage and despair begging for
death, because some one had desecrated his head and
deprived him of his divinity by sprinkling a few drops of
water on his hair.3 But it was not the Marquesan chiefs
only whose heads were sacred. The head of every Mar-
quesan was taboo, and might neither be touched nor stepped
over by another ; even a father might not step over the
head of his sleeping child ; 4 women were forbidden to carry
or touch anything that had been in contact with, or had
merely hung over, the head of their husband or father.5 No
one was allowed' to be over the head of the king of Tonga.0
In Hawaii (the Sandwich Islands) if a man climbed upon a
chief's house or upon the wall of his yard, he was put to
except by the king, who is free to made to the Pacific Ocean in the U.S.
marry his " sister," that is, any woman Frigate "Essex" (New York, 1S22),
of his own totem clan. In another ii. 65.
respect also the king is an exception to - Vincendon-Dumoulin et Desgraz
the general rule, for he inherits his (Paris, 1843), ^es Marquises, p. 262.
totem from his mother instead of from 3 Matthias G***, Lettres sur les
his father. The origin of totemism, lies Marquises (Paris, 1843), p. 50.
according to the Waganda, was that 4 Langsdorff, Reise um die Welt, i.
some persons, finding certain foods to 1 15 sq.
disagree with them, abstained from 5 Max Radiguet, Les derniers sail-
eating these foods and commanded vages (Paris, 1882), p. 156.
their descendants to do so also. G Capt. James Cook, Voyages, v. 427
1 David Porter, Journal of a Cruise (ed. 1809).
366 SANCTITY OF THE HEAD chap.
death ; if his shadow fell on a chief, he was put to death ;
if he walked in the shadow of a chief's house with his head
painted white or decked with a garland or wetted with
water, he was put to death.1 In Tahiti any one who
stood over the king or queen, or passed his hand over
their heads, might be put to death.2 Until certain rites
were performed over it, a Tahitian infant was especially
taboo ; whatever touched the child's head, while it was
in this state, became sacred and was deposited in a conse-
crated place railed in for the purpose at the child's house.
If a branch of a tree touched the child's head, the tree
was cut down ; and if in its fall it injured another tree
so as to penetrate the bark, that tree also was cut down as
unclean and unfit for use. After the rites were performed,
these special taboos ceased ; but the head of a Tahitian was
always sacred, he never carried anything on it, and to touch
it was an offence.3 In New Zealand " the heads of the
chiefs were always tabooed (tapu\ hence they could not
pass, or sit, under food hung up ; or carry food as others,
on their backs ; neither would they eat a meal in a house,
nor touch a calabash of water in drinking. No one could
touch their head, nor, indeed, commonly speak of it, or
allude to it ; to do so offensively was one of their heaviest
curses, and grossest insults, only to be wiped out with
blood."4 So sacred was the head of a Maori chief that
" if he only touched it with his fingers, he was obliged
immediately to apply them to his nose, and snuff up the
sanctity which they had acquired by the touch, and thus
restore it to the part from whence it was taken." 5 On account
of the sacredness of his head a Maori chief " could not blow
the fire with his mouth, for the breath being sacred, com-
municated his sanctity to it, and a brand might be taken by
1 Jules Remy, Ka Mooolelo Hawaii, tions and Proceedings of the New
Histoire de V Archipel Havaiien (Paris Zealand Institute, 1868, vol. i. (separ-
and Leipsic, 1862), p. 159. ately paged).
2 W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, iii. 5 R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui, or
102. New Zealand and its Inhabitants, p.
3 James Wilson, A Missionary Voyage 165. We have seen that under certain
to the Southern Pacific Ocean (London, special circumstances common persons
J799)> P- 354 sq. also are temporarily forbidden to touch
4 W. Colenso, "The Maori races their heads with their hands. See above,
of New Zealand," p. 43, in Transac- pp. 326, 327, 329, 331, 337, 342.
ii SANCTITY OF THE HEAD 367
a slave, or a man of another tribe, or the fire might be used
for other purposes, such as cooking, and so cause his death." x
It is a crime for a sacred person in New Zealand to leave
his comb, or anything else which has touched his head, in a
place where food has been cooked, or to suffer another
person to drink out of any vessel which has touched his
lips. Hence when a chief wishes to drink he never puts his
lips to the vessel, but holds his hands close to his mouth so
as to form a hollow, into which water is poured by another
person, and thence is allowed to flow into his mouth. If a
light is needed for his pipe, the burning ember taken from
the fire must be thrown away as soon as it is used ; for the
pipe becomes sacred because it has touched his mouth ; the
coal becomes sacred because it has touched the pipe ; and
if a particle of the sacred cinder were replaced on the
common fire, the fire would also become sacred and could
no longer be used for cooking.2 Some Maori chiefs, like
other Polynesians, object to go down into a ship's cabin
from fear of people passing over their heads.3 Dire mis-
fortune was thought by the Maoris to await those who
entered a house where any article of animal food was
suspended over their heads. " A dead pigeon, or a piece
of pork hung from the roof, was a better protection from
molestation than a sentinel."4 If I am right, the reason for
the special objection to having animal food over the head
is the fear of bringing the sacred head into contact with the
spirit of the animal ; just as the reason why the Flamen
Dialis might not walk under a vine was the fear of brin^inc"
his sacred head into contact with the spirit of the vine.
Similarly King Darius would not pass through a gate over
which there was a tomb, because in doing so he would have
had a corpse above his head.0
When the head was considered so sacred that it might not
o
1 R. Taylor, I.e. corvette " Austrolabe" : histoire du
2 E. Shortland, The Southern Bis- V°{age' "j" 5^4'.
tricts of New Zealand, p. 293; id., lr , , A" Crulse> J°"™al of a Ten
Traditions and Superstitions of the ,1° J Re"d^ ** New Zealand
New Zealanders, p. 107 so. £?"d°"' lS23)' P' I§7 ; Dumont
D'Urville, op. cit. ii. 533 ; E. Short-
3 J. Dumont D'Urville, Voyageautour land, The Southern Districts of New
du Monde et d la recherche deLa Perouse, Zealand ( London , 1 8 5 1 ) , p. 30.
execute sous son commandement sur la s Herodotus, i. 1S7.
368
HAIR NOT SHORN
CHAT,
even be touched without grave offence, it is obvious that the
cutting of the hair must have been a delicate and difficult
operation. The difficulties and dangers which, on the
primitive view, beset the operation are of two kinds. There
is first the danger of disturbing the spirit of the head, which
may be injured in the process and may revenge itself upon
the person who molests him. Secondly, there is the difficulty
of disposing of the shorn locks. For the savage believes
that the sympathetic connection which exists between him-
self and every part of his body continues to exist even after
the physical connection has been broken, and that therefore
he will suffer from any harm that may befall the severed
parts of his body, such as the clippings of his hair or the
parings of his nails. Accordingly he takes care that these
severed portions of himself shall not be left in places where
they might either be exposed to accidental injury or fall
into the hands of malicious persons who might work magic
on them to his detriment or death. Such dangers are
common to all, but sacred persons have more to fear
from them than ordinary people, so the precautions taken
by them are proportionately stringent. The simplest
way of evading the peril is not to cut the hair at all ;
and this is the expedient adopted where the risk is
thought to be more than usually great. The Prankish kings
were never allowed to crop their hair ; from their childhood
upwards they had to keep it unshorn.1 To poll the long
locks that floated on their shoulders would have been to
renounce their right to the throne. When the wicked
brothers Clotaire and Childebert coveted the kingdom of
their dead brother Clodomir, they inveigled into their power
1 Agathias, Hist. i. 3 ; Grimm,
Deutsche Rechtsalterthiimer, p. 239 sqq.
The story of the Phrygian king Midas,
who concealed the ears of an ass under
his long hair (Aristophanes, Pint us, 287 ;
Ovid, Metam. xi. 146-193), mayperhaps
be a distorted reminiscence of a similar
custom in Phrygia. Parallels to the
story are recorded in modern Greece,
Ireland, Brittany, Servia, India, and
among the Mongols. See B. Schmidt,
Griechische Mdrchen, Sagen und
J'olkslieder, pp. 70 sq., 224 sq. ;
Grimm's Household Tales, ii. 498,
trans, by M. Hunt ; Patrick Kennedy,
Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts,
p. 248 sqq. (ed. 1866); De Nore,
Continues, mythes, et traditions des
provinces de la France, p. 219 sq. ;
Karadschitsch, Volksmcirchen der Ser-
ben, No. 39, p. 225 sqq. ; North
Indian Notes and Queries, iii. p. 104,
§ 218 ; Jiilg, Mongolische Mdrchen-
Sammlung, No. 22, p. 182 sqq. ;
Sagas from the Far Fast, No. 21,
p. 206 sqq.
II
HAIR NOT SHORN
369
their little nephews, the two sons of Clodomir ; and having
done so, they sent a messenger bearing scissors and a naked
sword to the children's grandmother, Queen Clotilde, at
Paris. The envoy showed the scissors and the sword to
Clotilde, and bade her choose whether the children should
be shorn and live or remain unshorn and die. The proud
queen replied that if her grandchildren were not to come to
the throne she would rather see them dead than shorn.
And murdered they were by their ruthless uncle Clotaire
with his own hand.1 The hair of the Aztec priests hung
down to their hams, so that the weight of it became very
troublesome ; for they might never poll it so long as they
lived, or at least until they had been relieved of their office on
the score of old age. They wore it braided in great tresses,
six fingers broad, and tied with cotton." A Haida medicine-
man may neither clip nor comb his tresses, so they are
always long and tangled.3 Amongst the Alfoors of Celebes
the Leleen or priest who looks after the rice-fields may not
shear his hair during the time that he exercises his special
functions, that is from a month before the rice is sown until
it is housed.4 Men of the Tsetsaut tribe in British Columbia
do not cut their hair, believing that if they cut it they
would quickly grow old.0 In Ceram men do not crop their
hair : if married men did so, they would lose their wives ; if
young men did so, they would grow weak and enervated."
In Timorlaut married men may not poll their hair for the
same reason as in Ceram, but widowers and men on a
journey may do so after offering a fowl or a pig in sacrifice.7
Malays of the Peninsula are forbidden to clip their hair
during their wife's pregnancy and for forty days after the
child has been born ; and a similar abstention is said to
1 Gregory of Tours, Histoire
eccUsiastique des Francs, iii. 18, cp.
vi. 24 (Guizot's translation).
2 Herrera, Gene?-al History of the
vast Continent and Islands of America,
iii. 216 (Stevens's translation).
3 G. M. Dawson, "On the Haida
Indians of Queen Charlotte Islands,"
in Geological Survey of Canada, Report
of Progress for 1878-79, p. 123 B.
* P. N. Wilken, " Bijdragen tot
de kennis van de zeden en gewoonten
VOL. I
der Alfoeren in de Minahassa," Aledc-
deelingen van wege het Nederlandsche
Zendelinggenootschap, vii. (1S63), p.
126.
5 Fr. Boas, in Tenth Report on the
North-Western Tribes of Canada, p. 45
(separate reprint from the Report of
the British Association for 1895).
0 Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharigc
rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p.
137.
7 Riedel, op. cif. p. 292 sq.
2 B
370 HAIR NOT SHORN chap.
have been formerly incumbent on all persons prosecuting
a journey or engaged in war.1 Elsewhere men travelling
abroad have been in the habit of leaving their hair unshorn
until their return. The reason for this custom is probably
the danger to which, as we have seen, a traveller is believed
to be exposed from the magic arts of the strangers amongst
whom he sojourns ; if they got possession of his shorn hair,
they might work his destruction through it. The Egyptians
on a journey kept their hair uncut till they returned home.2
" At Taif when a man returned from a journey his first duty
was to visit the Rabba and poll his hair."; The custom of
keeping the hair unshorn during a dangerous expedition
seems to have been observed, at least occasionally, by the
Romans.4 Achilles kept unshorn his yellow hair, because
his father had vowed to offer it to the River Sperchius if
ever his son came home from the wars beyond the sea.0
Formerly when Dyak warriors returned with the heads of
their enemies, each man cut off a lock from the front of his
head and threw it into the river as a mode of ending the
taboo to which they had been subjected during the expedi-
tion.6 Bechuanas after a battle had their hair shorn by their
mothers " in order that new hair might grow, and that all
which was old and polluted might disappear and be no
more." r
Again, men who have taken a vow of vengeance some-
times keep their hair unshorn till they have fulfilled their
vow. Thus of the Marquesans we are told that " occasionally
they have their head entirely shaved, except one lock on the
crown, which is worn loose or put up in a knot. But the
1 W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 44. Greeks often dedicated a lock of
2 Diodorus Siculus, i. 18. thfir |,air t0 rivei;s:, See Aeschylus,
L hoephort, 5 sq. ; Philostratus, Heroica,
3 W. Robertson Smith, Kinship and xiiL 4; pauSanias, i. 37. 3, viii. 20.
Marriage in Early Arabia, p. 152 sq. ^ viii- 4I< 3- The lock mignt be at
4 Valerius Flaccus, Argonaut, i. 378 the side or the back of the head or
sq. : — over the brow ; it received a special
" Tectus et Eurytion se>~vatocollacapillo, name (Pollux, ii. 30).
Que/n pater Aonias redncem tondebit ad 6 S. W. Tromp, " Een Dajaksch
aras." Feest," Bijdragen tot de 7'aal- Land- en
But in this passage the poet perhaps 1'olkenkunde van Nederlandsch Indie,
merely imitated Homer. See the next xxxix. (1890), p. 38. £?
note. " Arbousset et Daumas, Relation
5 Homer, Iliad, xxiii. 141 sqq. The dun voyage d 'exploration, p. 565.
K
ii HAIR NOT SHORN 371
latter mode of wearing the hair is only adopted by them
when they have a solemn vow, as to revenge the death of
some near relation, etc. In such case the lock is never cut
off until they have fulfilled their promise."1 A similar
custom was sometimes observed by the ancient Germans ;
among the Chatti the young warriors never clipped their
hair or their beard till they had slain an enemy.2 Six
thousand Saxons once swore that they would not poll their
hair nor shave their beards until they had taken vengeance
on their enemies.3 On one occasion a Hawaiian taboo is
said to have lasted thirty years, " during which the men
were not allowed to trim their beards, etc."4 While his
Svovv lasted, a Nazarite might not have his hair cut : " All
the days of the vow of his separation there shall no razor
come upon his head." 5 Possibly in this case there was
a special objection to touching the tabooed man's head with
iron. The Roman priests, as we have seen, were shorn with
bronze knives. The same feeling perhaps gave rise to the
European rule that a child's nails should not be pared during
the first year, but that if it is absolutely necessary to shorten
them they should be bitten off by the mother or nurse.6
For in all parts of the world a young child is believed to be
especially exposed to supernatural dangers, and particular
precautions are taken to guard it against them ; in other
words, the child is under a number of taboos, of which the
rule just mentioned is one. " Among Hindus the usual
custom seems to be that the nails of a first-born child are
cut at the age of six months. With other children a year
1 D. Porter, Journal of a Cruise Folk-lore of 'the Northern Counties,^. 16
made to the Pacific Ocean, ii. 120. so. ; F. Panzer, Beitrag zur deutschen
2 Tacitus, Germania, 31. Vows of Mythologie, i. p. 258, § 23; Zingerle,
the same sort were occasionally made Stifen> Brauche und Memungen des
by the Romans (Suetonius, Julius, 67; Tlroler l'olkes> §§ 46, 72; J. W.
Tacitus, Hist. iv. 61). Wolf' Bettrage zur deutschen Mytk-
1 -n, , t^- rr- , ologie, i. p. 208 8 4.K, p. 200 8 53;
3 pauluS Dlaconus Hut. Langobard. ^ Volkssagen, Erzallungen, etc
111. 7; Gregory of Tours, Histoire am^MUchenHiHter*mm*rn%V.xs1
ecclisiastique des Francs, v. 15 £ Veckenstedt, Wendische Sagen,
(Uuizot s translation). ,,■ ; j 1 ?■■ i- 1 •- * •■ 1
K ' Marcnen una aberglaiioiscne Georauche,
4 W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, p. 445 ; J. Haltrich, Zur Volkskunde der
iv. 387. Siebenbiirger Sachsen, p. 313; E.
5 Numbers vi. 5. Krause, " Aberglaubische Kuren u.
6 J. A. E. Kohler, Volksbrauch, etc., sonstiger Aberglaube in Berlin," Zeit-
im Voigtlande, p. 424 ; W. Henderson, schriftfiir Ethnologie, xv. (1883), p. 84.
t'<
37-
CEREMONIES AT HAIR-CUTTING
chap.
or two is allowed to elapse." ' The Slave, Hare, and Dogrib
Indians of North America do not pare the nails of female
children till they are four years of age.2 In some parts
of Germany it is thought that if a child's hair is combed
in its first year the child will be unlucky ;3 or that if a
boy's hair is cut before his seventh year he will have no
courage.
But when it becomes necessary to crop the hair, precautions
are taken to lessen the dangers which are supposed to attend
the operation. The chief of Namosi in Fiji always ate a man
by way of precaution when he had had his hair cut. " There
was a certain clan that had to provide the victim, and they
used to sit in solemn council among themselves to choose
him. It was a sacrificial feast to avert evil from the chief."
This remarkable custom has been described more fully by
another observer. The old heathen temple at Namosi is
called Rukunitambua, " and round about it are hundreds of
stones, each of which tells a fearful tale. A subject tribe,
whose town was some little distance from Namosi, had
committed an unpardonable offence, and were condemned
to a frightful doom. The earth- mound on which their
temple had stood was planted with the mountain ndalo
(arum), and when the crop was ripe, the poor wretches had
to carry it down to Namosi, and give at least one of their
number to be killed and eaten by the chief. He used to
take advantage of these occasions to have his hair cut,
for the human sacrifice was supposed to avert all danger
of witchcraft if any ill-wisher got hold of the cuttings of his
hair, human hair being the most dangerous channel for the
deadliest spells of the sorcerers. The stones round Rukuni-
tambua represented these and other victims who had been
1 Panjab Notes and Queries, ii. p.
205, § 1092.
2 G. Gibbs, "Notes on the Tinneli
or Chepewyan Indians of British and
Russian America," in Annual Report
of the Smithsonian Institution, 1S66,
p. 305 ; W. Dall, Alaska and its
Resources, p. 202. The reason alleged
by the Indians is that if the girls' nails
were cut sooner the girls would be lazy
and unable to embroider in porcupine
quill -work. But this is probably a
late invention like the reasons assigned
in Europe for the similar custom, of
which the commonest is that the child
would become a thief if its nails were
cut.
3 Knoop, I.e.
4 Wolf, Beitriige zur deutschen
Mythologie, i. p. 209, § 57.
5 Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a letter to
the author, dated August 26th, 1S9S.
ii CEREMONIES AT HAIR-CUTTING 373
killed and eaten at Namosi. Each stone was the record of
a murder succeeded by a cannibal feast." x Amongst the
Maoris many spells were uttered at hair-cutting ; one, for
example, was spoken to consecrate the obsidian knife with
which the hair was cut ; another was pronounced to avert
the thunder and lightning which hair-cutting was believed to
cause.2 " He who has had his hair cut is in immediate charge
of the Atua (spirit) ; he is removed from the contact and
society of his family and his tribe ; he dare not touch his
food himself; it is put into his mouth by another person ;
nor can he for some days resume his accustomed occupations
or associate with his fellow-men." 3 The person who cuts
the hair is also tabooed ; his hands having been in contact
with a sacred head, he may not touch food with them or
engage in any other employment ; he is fed by another
person with food cooked over a sacred fire. He cannot be
released from the taboo before the following day, when he
rubs his hands with potato or fern root which has been
cooked on a sacred fire ; and this food having been taken to
the head of the family in the female line and eaten by her,
his hands are freed from the taboo. In some parts of New
Zealand the most sacred day of the year was that appointed
for hair-cutting ; the people assembled in large numbers on
that day from all the neighbourhood.4 Sometimes a Maori
chief's hair was shorn by his wife, who was then tabooed for
a week as a consequence of having touched his sacred locks.5
It is an affair of state when the king of Cambodia's hair is
cropped. The priests place on the barber's fingers certain old
rings set with large stones, which are supposed to contain
spirits favourable to the kings, and during the operation the
Brahmans keep up a noisy music to drive away the evil
1 From the report of a lecture :; Richard A. Cruise, Journal of a
delivered in Melbourne, December Ten Months' Residence in New Zealand,
9th, 1898, by the Rev. H. Worrall, p. 2S3 sq. Cp. Dumont D'Urville,
of Fiji, missionary. The newspaper Voyage autourdu Monde eta la recherche
cutting from which the above extract de La Perouse : histoire du Voyage
is quoted was sent to me by the Rev. (Paris, 1832), ii. 533.
Lorimer Fison in a letter, dated Mel- 4 E. Shortland, Traditions and
bourne January 9th, 1899.. Mr. Fison Superstitions of the Netu ZealanderP,
omits to give the name and date of the p. 108, sqq. ; Taylor, I.e.
newspaper. 5 G. F. Angas, Savage Life and
- R. Taylor, New Zealand and its Scenes in Australia and New Zealand,
Inhabitants, p. 206 sqq. ii. 90 sq.
574
CEREMONIES AT HAIR-CUTTING
CHAI'.
spirits.1 The hair and nails of the Mikado could only be cut1
while he was asleep,2 perhaps because his soul being then
absent from his body, there was less chance of injuring it|
with the shears.
From their earliest days little Siamese children have the
crown of the head clean shorn with the exception of a single
small tuft of hair, which is daily combed, twisted, oiled, and
tied in a little knot until the day when it is finally removed
with great pomp and ceremony. The ceremony of shaving
the top-knot takes place before the child has reached puberty,
and great anxiety is felt at this time lest the kwun, or
guardian -spirit who commonly resides in the body and
especially the head of every Siamese,3 should be so disturbed
by the tonsure as to depart and leave the child a hopeless
wreck for life. Great pains are therefore .taken to recall this
mysterious being in case he should have fled, and to fix him
securely in the child. This is the object of an elaborate
ceremony performed on the afternoon of the day when the
top-knot has been cut. A miniature pagoda is erected, and
on it are placed several kinds of food known to be favourites
of the spirit. When the kwun has arrived and is feasting
on these dainties, he is caught and held fast under a cloth
thrown over the food. The child is now placed near the
pagoda, and all the family and friends form a circle, with the
child, the captured spirit, and the Brahman priests in the
middle. Hereupon the priests address the spirit, earnestly
entreating him to enter into the child. They amuse him
with tales, and coax and wheedle him with flattery, jest, and
song ; the gongs ring out their loudest ; the people cheer,
and only a kwun of the sourest and most obdurate disposition
could resist the combined appeal. The last sentences of
the formal invocation run as follows : " Benignant kivun I
Thou fickle being who art wont to wander and dally about !
From the moment that the child was conceived in the
womb, thou hast enjoyed every pleasure, until ten (lunar)
months having elapsed and the time of delivery arrived,
thou hast suffered and run the risk of perishing by being-
born alive into the world. Gracious kwun ! thou wast at
1 J. Moura, Lc Royaume du Cambodge, i. 226 sq.
- See above, p. 234. 3 See above, p. 362 sq.
1 1 CEREMONIES AT HAIR- CUTTING 37 5
that time so tender, delicate, and wavering as to cause great
anxiety concerning thy fate ; thou wast exactly like a child,
youthful, innocent, and inexperienced. The least trifle
frightened thee and made thee shudder. In thy infantile
playfulness thou wast wont to frolic and wander to no
purpose. As thou didst commence to learn to sit, and,
unassisted, to crawl totteringly on all fours, thou wast ever
falling flat on thy face or on thy back. As thou didst grow
up in years and couldst move thy steps firmly, thou didst
begin to run and sport thoughtlessly and rashly all round
the rooms, the terrace, and bridging planks of travelling boat
or floating house, and at times thou didst fall into the
stream, creek, or pond, among the floating water-weeds, to
the utter dismay of those to whom thy existence was most
dear. O gentle kwun, come into thy corporeal abode ; do
not delay this auspicious rite. Thou art now full-grown' and
dost form everybody's delight and admiration. Let all the
tiny particles of kwun that have fallen on land or water
assemble and take permanent abode in this darling little
child. Let them all hurry to the site of this auspicious
ceremony and admire the magnificent preparations made for
them in this hall." The brocaded cloth from the pagoda,
under which lurks the captive spirit, is now rolled up tightly
and handed to the child, who is told to clasp it firmly to
his breast and not let the kwun escape. Further, the child
drinks the milk of the cocoa-nuts which had been offered to
the spirit, and by thus absorbing the food of the kwun
ensures the presence of that precious spirit in his body. A
magic cord is tied round his wrist to keep off the wicked
spirits who would lure the kwun away from home ; and for
three nights he sleeps with the embroidered cloth from the
pagoda fast clasped in his arms.1
But even when the hair and nails have been safelv cut,
there remains the difficulty of disposing of them, for their
owner believes himself liable to suffer from any harm that
may befall them. The notion that a man may be
bewitched by means of the clippings of his hair, the parings
of his nails, or any other severed portion of his person is
1 E. Young, The Kingdom of the have abridged the account of the cere-
Yellow Robe, pp. 64 sq., 67-84. I monies by omitting some details.
376
MAGIC USE OF SHORN HAIR
CHAP.
world - wide, and attested by evidence too ample, too
familiar, and too tedious in its uniformity to be here
analysed at length. The general idea on which the
superstition rests is that of the sympathetic connection
supposed to persist between a person and everything that
has once been part of his body or in any way closely
related to him. A very few examples must suffice.
Thus, when the Chilote Indians, inhabiting the wild,
deeply indented coasts and dark rain -beaten forests of
Southern Chile, get possession of the hair of an enemy,
they drop it from a high tree or tie it to a piece of
seaweed and fling it into the surf ; for they think that the
shock of the fall, or the blows of the waves as the tress is
tossed to and fro on the heaving billows, will be transmitted
through the hair to the person from whose head it was cut.1
Dread of sorcery, we are told, formed one of the most salient
characteristics of the Marquesan islanders in the old days.
The sorcerer took some of the hair, spittle, or other bodily
refuse of the man he wished to injure, wrapped it up in a leaf,
and placed the packet in a bag woven of threads or fibres,
which were knotted in an intricate way. The whole was then
buried with certain rites, and thereupon the victim wasted away
of a languishing sickness which lasted twenty days. His life,
however, might be saved by discovering and digging up the
buried hair, spittle, or what not ; for as soon as this was
done the power of the charm ceased.2 A Marquesan chief
told Lieutenant Gamble that he was extremely ill, the
Happah tribe having stolen a lock of his hair and buried it
in a plantain leaf for the purpose of taking his life.
Lieutenant Gamble argued with him, but in vain ; die he
must unless the hair and the plantain leaf were brought back
to him ; and to obtain them he had offered the Happahs the
greater part of his property. He complained of excessive
pain in the head, breast, and sides.3 A Maori -sorcerer
intent on bewitching somebody sought to get a tress
of his victim's hair, the parings of his nails, some of his
1 C. Martin, " Ueber die Einge- lies Marquises, p. 247 sq.
borenen von Chiloe," Zeitschrift fur
Ethnologie, ix. (1877), p. 177. 3 D. Porter, Journal of a Cruise
2 Yincendon-Dumoulin et Desgraz, made to the Pacific Ocean, ii. 188.
ii MAGIC USE OF SHORN HAIR 377
spittle, or a shred of his garment. Having obtained the
object, whatever it was, he chanted some spells and curses
over it in a falsetto voice and buried it in the ground. As
the thing decayed, the person to whom it had belonged was
supposed to waste away.1 Again, an Australian girl, sick of
a fever, laid the blame of her illness on a young man who
had come behind her and cut off a lock of her hair ; she was
sure he had buried it and that it was rotting. " Her hair,"
she said, "was rotting somewhere, and her Marm-bu-la
(kidney fat) was wasting away, and when her hair had
completely rotted, she would die." 2 When an Australian
blackfellow wishes to get rid of his wife, he cuts off a lock of
her hair in her sleep, ties it to his spear-thrower, and goes with
it to a neighbouring tribe, where he gives it to a friend. His
friend sticks the spear-thrower ' up every night before the
camp fire, and when it falls down it is a sign that his wife
is dead.3 The way in which the charm operates was
explained to Mr. Howitt by a Mirajuri man. " You see,"
he said, " when a blackfellow doctor gets hold of something
belonging to a man and roasts it with things, and sings over
it, the fire catches hold of the smell of the man, and that
settles the poor fellow." 4 A slightly different form of the
charm as practised in Australia is to fasten the enemy's hair
with wax to the pinion bone of a hawk, and set the bone in
a small circle of fire. According as the sorcerer desires the
death or only the sickness of his victim he leaves the bone
in the midst of the fire or removes it and lays it in the sun.
When he thinks he has done his enemy enough harm he
places the bone in water, which ends the enchantment.5
Lucian describes how a Syrian witch professed to bring back
a faithless lover to his forsaken fair one by means of a lock
of his hair, his shoes, his garments, or something of that
sort. She hung the hair, or whatever it was, on a peg and
fumigated it with brimstone, sprinkling salt on the fire and
1 R. Taylor, Te Ika a Main, or 4 A. W. Howitt, " On Australian
New Zealand and its Inhabitants, p. Medicine - men," in Joitrn. Anthrop.
203 sq. ; A. S. Thomson, The Story Inst. xvi. (1SS7), p. 27.
of New Zealand, i. 1 1 6 sq.
2 E-rough Smyth, Aborigines of ■' E. Palmer, " Notes on some
Victoria, i. 468 sq. Australian Tribes," Journal of the
3 J.Dawson, A usjralian Aborigines, Anthropological Institute, xiii. (1SS4),
P- 36- P- 293.
378
MAGIC USE OF SHORN HAIR
CHAP.
mentioning the names of the lover and his lass. Then she
drew a magic wheel from her bosom and set it spinning
while she gabbled a spell full of barbarous and fearsome
words. This soon brought the false lover back to the
feet of his charmer.1 Apuleius tells how an amorous
Thessalian witch essayed to win the affections of a handsome
Boeotian youth by similar means. As darkness fell she
mounted the roof, and there, surrounded by a hellish array
of dead men's bones, she knotted the severed tresses of
auburn hair and threw them on the glowing embers of a
perfumed fire. But her cunning handmaid had outwitted
her ; the hair was only goat's hair ; and all her enchantments
ended in dismal and ludicrous failure.2
In Germany it is a common notion that if birds find a
person's cut hair, and build their nests with it, the person
will suffer from headache ; 3 sometimes it is thought that he
will have an eruption on the head.4 The same superstition
prevails, or used to prevail, in West Sussex. " I knew how
it would be," exclaimed a maidservant one day, " when I saw
that bird fly off with a bit of my hair in its beak that blew
out of the window this morning when I was dressing ; I knew
I should have a clapping headache, and so I have." '' Again it
is thought that cut or combed-out hair may disturb the
weather by producing rain and hail, thunder and lightning.
We have seen that in New Zealand a spell was uttered
1 Lucian, Dial. Meretr. iv. 4 sq.
2 Apuleius, Metamorph. iii. 16 sqq.
For more evidence of the same sort, see
Th. Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, i.
248 ; James Bonwick, Daily life of the
Tasmanians, p. 178 ; James Chalmers,
Pioneering in New Guinea, p. 1S7 :
J. S. Polack, Manners and Customs of
the New Zealanders, i. 282 ; Bastian,
Die Vblker des ostlichcu Asien, iii.
270 ; Langsdorff, Reise um die Welt,
i. 134 sq. ; W. Ellis, Polynesian Re-
searehes, i. 364 ; A. B. Ellis, Ewe-
speaking peoples of the Slave Coast,
p. 99 ; R. H. Codrington, The
M, lanesians, p. 203 ; Miss Mary II.
Kingsley, Travels in West Africa,
p. 447 ; Zingerle, Sitten, Brduche
lend Meinitngen des Tiroler Vblkes,2
§ 178 ; R. Andree, Ethnographische
Parallelen und Vergleicke, Neue Folge,
p. 12 sqq. ; E. S. Hartland, Legend of
Perseus, ii. 64-74, 132-139.
3 Meier, Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und
Gebrditche aits Sckwaben, p. 509 ; Bir-
linger, Volkstkiimlich.es aits Sckwaben,
i. 493 ; Panzer, Beitrag zur deutschen
Mythologie, i. 258 ; J. A. E. Kohler,
Volksbrauch, etc., i»i Voigtlande, p.
425 ; A. Witzschel, Sagen, Sitten und
Gebrditche aits Thiiringen, p. 282 ;
Zingerle, op. cit. § 1S0; Wolf,
Beit rage zur deutschen Mythologie, i.
p. 224, § 273. A similar belief
prevails among the gypsies of Eastern
Europe (H. von Wlislocki, Volksglaube
und religioser Branch dcr Zigeuncr,
P. Si). '
4 Zingerle, op. cit. § 181.
5 Charlotte Latham, " Some West
Sussex Superstitions," Polk- lore Record,
i. (187S), p. 40.
ii MAGIC USE OF SHORN HAIR 379
at hair-cutting to avert thunder and lightning. In the
Tyrol, witches are supposed to use cut or combed-out hair to
make hailstones or thunderstorms with.1 Thlinkeet Indians
have been known to attribute stormy weather to the rash
act of a girl who had combed her hair outside of the house.2
The Romans seem to have held similar views, for it was a
maxim with them that no one on shipboard should cut his
hair or nails except in a storm,3 that is, when the mischief
was already done. In West Africa, when the Mani of
Chitombe or Jumba died, the people used to run in crowds
to the corpse and tear out his hair, teeth, and nails, which
they kept as a rain-charm, believing that otherwise no rain
would fall. The Makoko of the Anzikos begged the
missionaries to give him half their beards as a rain-charm.4
The Wabondei of Eastern Africa preserve the hair and nails
of their dead chiefs and use them both for the making of rain
and the healing of the sick.D The hair, beard, and nails of
their deceased chiefs are the most sacred possession, the
most precious treasure of the Baronga of South-Eastern
Africa. Preserved in pellets of cow-dung wrapt round with
leathern thongs, they are kept in a special hut under the
charge of a high priest, who offers sacrifices and prayers
at certain seasons, and has to observe strict continence for a
month before he handles these holy relics in the offices of
religion. A terrible drought was once the result of this
palladium falling into the hands of the enemy." In some
Victorian tribes the sorcerer used to burn human hair in
time of drought ; it was never burned at other times for fear
of causing a deluge of rain. Also when the river was low,
the sorcerer would place human hair in the stream to increase
the supply of water.7
To preserve the cut hair and nails from injury and from
the dangerous uses to which they may be put by sorcerers,
1 Zingerle, op. at. §jj 176, 179. •'■ O. Baumann, Usambara und
2 A. Krause, Die Tlinkit-Indianer seine Nachbargebiete (Berlin, 1S91),
(Jena, 1885), p. 300. P- M'.
■> n . . .. . '' A. Junod, Les Ba-ronga (Neu-
! retronius, Sat. 104. , , , •„ 0 ' 0 * v
4 chatel, 1S9S), pp. 39S-400.
4 Bastian, Die deutsche Expedition • W. Stanbridge, " On the Abori-
au der Loango-Kiiste, i. 231 sq. ; id., gines of Victoria," Transact. Ethnolog,
Ein Bcsuch in San Salvador, p. 117.*/. S'oc. of London, N.S., i. (1861), p. 300.
380 HAIR DEPOSITED chai>.
it is necessary to deposit them in some safe place. Hence
the natives of the Maldives carefully keep the cuttings of
their hair and nails and bury them, with a little water, in
the cemeteries ; " for they would not for the world tread
upon them nor cast them in the fire, for they say that they
are part of their body, and demand burial as it does ; and,
indeed, they fold them neatly in cotton ; and most of them
like to be shaved at the gates of temples and mosques." x
In New Zealand the severed hair was deposited on some
sacred spot of ground " to protect it from being touched
accidentally or designedly by any one." 2 The shorn locks
of a chief were gathered with much care and placed in an
adjoining cemetery.3 The Tahitians buried the cuttings of
their hair at the temples.4 In the streets of Soku, West
Africa, a recent traveller observed cairns of large stones
piled against walls with tufts of human hair inserted in the
crevices. On asking the meaning of this, he was told that
when any native of the place polled his hair he carefully
gathered up the clippings and deposited them in one of these
cairns, all of which were sacred to the fetish and therefore
inviolable. These cairns of sacred stones, he further learned,
were simply a precaution against witchcraft, for if a man
were not thus careful in disposing of his hair, some of it
might fall into the hands of his enemies, who would, by
means of it, be able to cast spells over him and so compass
his destruction.5 When the top-knot of a Siamese child has
been cut with great ceremony, the short hairs are put into
a little vessel made of plantain leaves and set adrift on the
nearest river or canal. As they float away, all that was
wrong or harmful in the child's disposition is believed to
depart with them. The long hairs are kept till the child
makes a pilgrimage to the holy Footprint of Buddha on the
sacred hill at Prabat. They are then presented to the
1 Francois Pyrard, Voyages to the Scenes in Australia and New Zealand,
East Indies, the Maldives, the Moluccas, ii. \o% sq.
and Brazil translated by Albert Gray 4 James wu A Missi v
(Hakluyt Society S 1S87), 1. HO sq. „ ^ Southern Pacific 0cean
» Shortland Traditions and Super- (Lond 1799), p. 355.
stitions of the New Zealanders^ p. 1 10. /**/>! J"
3 Polack, Manners and Customs of 6 R. A. Freeman, Travels and Life
the New Zealanders, i. 38 sq. Com- in Ashanti and Jaman (Westminster,
pare G. F. Angas, Savage Life and 1898), p. 171 sq.
ii IN SAFE PLACE 381
priests, who are supposed to make them into brushes with
which they sweep the Footprint ; but in fact so much hair
is thus offered every year that the priests cannot use it
all, so they quietly burn the superfluity as soon as the
pilgrims' backs are turned.1 The cut hair and nails of the
Flamen Dialis were buried under a lucky tree.2 The shorn
tresses of the Vestal virgins were hung on an ancient lotus-
tree.3 In Germany the clippings of hair used often to be
buried under an elder-bush.4 In Oldenburg cut hair and
nails are wrapt in a cloth which is deposited in a hole in an
elder-tree three days before the new moon ; the hole is then
plugged up.5 In the West of Northumberland it is thought
that if the first parings of a child's nails are buried under an
ash-tree, the child will turn out a fine singer.6 In Amboyna,
before a child may taste sago-pap for the first time, the
father cuts off a lock of the child's hair, which he buries
under a sago-palm.7 In the Aru Islands, when a child is
able to run alone, a female relation shears a lock of its
hair and deposits it on a banana-tree.s In the island of
Rotti it is thought that the first hair which a child gets is
not his own, and that, if it is not cut off, it will make him
weak and ill. Hence, when the child is about a month old,
his hair is polled with much ceremony. As each of the
friends who are invited to the ceremony enters the house he
goes up to the child, snips off a little of its hair and drops it
into a cocoa-nut shell full of water. Afterwards the father
or another relation takes the hair and packs it into a little
bag made of leaves, which he fastens to the top of a palm-
tree. Then he gives the leaves of the palm a good shaking,
1 E. Young, The Kingdo?n of the Saturn, ii. 16, but iii. 20 in L. Jan's
Yellow Robe, p. 79. edition).
2 Aulus Gellius, x. 15. 15. The 3 Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvi. 235 ; Festus,
ancients were not agreed as to the dis- p. 57 ed. Muller, s.v. Capillatam vel
tinction between lucky and unlucky capillarem a?-borem.
trees. According to Cato and Pliny, 4 Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksabcr-
trees that bore fruit were lucky, and glaube,'1 p. 294 sq., § 464.
trees which did not were unlucky 5 W. Mannhardt, Germanische My-
( Festus, ed. Mliller, p. 29, s.v. then, p. 630.
Felices ; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvi. 108); 6 W. Henderson, Folk-lore of the
but according to Tarquitius Priscus Northern Counties, p. 1 7.
those trees were unlucky which were 7 Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige
sacred to the infernal gods and bore rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p. 74.
black berries or black fruit (Macrobius, 8 Riedel, op. tit. p. 265.
3*2
HAIR DEPOSITED
CHAP.
climbs down, and goes home without speaking to any one.1
Indians of the Yukon territory, Alaska, do not throw away
their cut hair and nails, but tie them up in little bundles
and place them in the crotches of trees or wherever they are
not likely to be disturbed by animals. For " they have a
superstition that disease will follow the disturbance of such
remains by animals." "
Often the clipped hair and nails are stowed away in any
secret place, not necessarily in a temple or cemetery or at
a tree, as in the cases already mentioned. Thus in Swabia
you are recommended to deposit your clipped hair in some
spot where neither sun nor moon can shine on it, for example
in the earth or under a stone.3 In Danzig it is buried in a
bag under the threshold.4 In Ugi, one of the Solomon
Islands, men bury their hair lest it should fall into the hands
of an enemy who would make magic with it and so bring
sickness or calamity on them.5 The same fear seems to be
general in Melanesia, and has led to a regular practice of
hiding cut hair and nails.6 In Fiji, the shorn hair is concealed
in the thatch of the house.7 The Zend Avesta directs that
the clippings of hair and the parings of nails shall be placed
in separate holes, and that three, six, or nine furrows shall be
drawn round each hole with a metal knife.s In the Grz'hya-
Sutras it is provided that the hair cut from a child's head at
the end of the first, third, fifth, or seventh year shall be
buried in the earth at a place covered with grass or in
the neighbourhood of water.9 The Madi or Moru tribe of
Central Africa bury the parings of their nails in the ground.10
1 G. Heijmcring, "Zeden en gewoon-
ten op het eiland Rottie," Tijdschrift
voor Neerlands Indie, 1843, dl. ii.
pp. 634-637.
2 W. Dall, Alaska and its Resources
(London, 1S70), p. 54; F. Whymper,
"The Natives of the Youkon River,"
Transactions of the Ethnological Society
of London, N.S., vii. (1869), p. 174.
3 E. Meier, Deutsche Sagcn, Si/tcn
tend Gebrauche aits Sckwaben, p.
509 ; Birlinger, Volks/h/it/tliches aits
Schwaben, i. 493.
4 W. Mannhardt, Gertnanische My-
then, p. 630.
5 H. B. Guppy, The Solomon Islands
and their Natives (London, 1887), p.
54-
6 R. H. Codiington, The Melan-
esians, p. 203.
7 Th. Williams, Fiji and the Fijians,
i. 249.
8 Fargaard, xvii.
9 Gnhya-Stitras, translated by H.
Oldenberg (Oxford, 1S86), vol. i. p.
57. Compare H. Oldenbej, Die
Religion des Veda, p. 48 7.
10 R. W. Felkin, "Notes on the
Madi or Moru tribe of Central Africa,"
Proceedings of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh, xii. (1882-84), p. 332.
ii IX SAFE PLACE 383
In Uganda grown people throw away the clippings of their
hair, but carefully bury the parings of their nails.1 The A-lur
are careful to collect and bury both their hair and nails in
safe places.2 The same practice prevails among many tribes
of South Africa from a fear lest wizards should get hold of
the severed particles and work evil with them.3 The Caffres
carry still further this dread of allowing any portion of them-
selves to fall into the hands of an enemy ; for not only do
they bury their cut hair and nails in a secret spot, but when one
of them cleans the head of another he preserves the vermin
which he catches, " carefully delivering them to the person
to whom they originally appertained, supposing, according
to their theory, that as they derived their support from the
blood of the man from whom they were taken, should they
be killed by another, the blood of his neighbour would be
\in his possession, thus placing in his hands the power of
some superhuman influence." 4 Amongst the Wanyoro of
Central Africa all cuttings of the hair and nails are carefully
stored under the bed and afterwards strewed about among
the tall grass.5 Similarly the Wahoko of Central Africa
take pains to collect their cut hair and nails and scatter
them in the forest.0 In North Guinea the parings of the
finger-nails and the shorn locks of the head are scrupulously
concealed, lest they be converted into a charm for the
destruction of the person to whom they belong.7 Among
the Thompson River Indians of British Columbia loose hair
was buried, hidden, or thrown into the water, because, if an
enemy got hold of it, he might bewitch the owner.8 In
1 Fr. Stuhlmann, Mit Eniin Pascha i A. Steedman, Wanderings and
ins Herz von Afrika, p. 185 note. Adventures in the Interior of Southern
The same thing was told me in con- Africa (London, 1835), i. 266.
versation by the Rev. J. Roscoe, 5 Emi?i Pasha in Central Africa,
missionary to Uganda ; but I under- being a Collection of his Letters and
stood him to mean that the hair was Journals (London, 1888), p. 74.
not carelessly disposed of, but thrown 8 Fr. Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha
away in some place where it would not ins Herz von Afrika, p. 625.
easily be found. " J. L. Wilson, Western Africa, p.
2 Fr. Stuhlmann, op. cit. p. 516 so. 215.
3 J. Macdonald, Light in Africa, p. s James Teit, "The Thompson River
209; id., "Manners, customs, super- Indians of British Columbia," Memoirs
stitions and religions of South African of the American Museum of Natural
tribes ," Journal of the Anthropological History, vol. i. part iv. (April 1900),
Institute, xx. (1891), p. 1 31. p. 360.
384 HAIR AND NAILS KEPT chap.
Bolang Mongondo, a district of Western Celebes, the first hair
cut from a child's head is kept in a young cocoa-nut, which is
commonly hung on the front of the house, under the roof.1
To spit upon the hair before throwing it away is thought in
some parts of Europe to be a sufficient safeguard against its use
by witches.-2 Spitting as a protective charm is well known.3
Sometimes the severed hair and nails are preserved, not
to prevent them from falling into the hands of a magician,
but that the owner may have them at the resurrection of the
body, to which some races look forward. Thus the Incas
of Peru " took extreme care to preserve the nail-parings and
the hairs that were shorn off or torn out with a comb ;
placing them in holes or niches in the walls, and if they fell
out, any other Indian that saw them picked them up and
put them in their places again. I very often asked different
Indians, at various times, why they did this, in order to see
what they would say, and they all replied in the same words
saying, ' Know that all persons who are born must return to
life' (they have no word to express resuscitation), 'and the
souls must rise out of their tombs with all that belonged to
their bodies. We, therefore, in order that we may not have
to search for our hair and nails at a time when there will be
much hurry and confusion, place them in one place, that
they may be brought together more conveniently, and,
whenever it is possible, we are also careful to spit in one
place.'"4 In Chili this custom of stuffing the shorn hair
1 N. P. Wilken en J. A. Schwarz, being hit (Tettau unci Temme, Die
"Allerlei over het land en volk van Volkssagen Ostpreussetts, Litthauens
Bolaang Mongondou," Mededeelingcn mid Westpreussens (Berlin, 1837), p.
van wege het Nederlandsehe Zendeling- 284). For more examples, see Mayor
genootschap, xi. (1867), p. 322. on Juvenal, Sat. vii. 112; J. E.
2 Zingerle, Sitten, Brduche und Crombie, "The Saliva Superstition,"
Meinungen des Tiroler Volkes,2 §§ International Folk-lore Congress, iSip/,
176, 580; Mihtsine, 1878, col. 79; Papers and Transactions, p. 249 sq. ;
E. Monseur, Le Folklore [Fallon, C. de Mensignac, Kecherches Ethno-
p. 91. graph iqucs sur la Salive et le Crachat
3 Pliny, Nat. Hist, xxviii. 35 ; (Bordeaux, 1892), p. 50 sqq. ; F. W.
Theophrastus, Characters, The Super- Nicolson, " The Saliva Superstition in
stitious Man ; Theocritus, Id. , vi. 39, Classical Literature," Harvard Studies
vii. 127 ; Persius, Sat. ii. 31 sqq. in Classical Philology, viii. (1897), p.
At the siege of Danzig in 1734, when 35 sqq.
the old wives saw a bomb coming, they 4 Garcilasso de la Vega, First Part
used to spit thrice and cry, " Fi, fi, fi, of the Royal Commentaries of 'the Yncas,
there comes the dragon !" in the per- bk. ii. ch. 7 (vol. i. p. 127, Markham's
suasion that this secured them against translation).
ii AGAINST THE RESURRECTION 385
into holes in the wall is still observed, it being thought the
height of imprudence to throw the hair away.1 Similarly
the Turks never throw away the parings of their nails, but
carefully stow them in cracks of the walls or of the boards,
in the belief that they will be needed at the resurrection.2
Some of the Esthonians keep the parings of their finger and
toe nails in their bosom, in order to have them at hand when
they are asked for them at the day of judgment.3 In a like
spirit peasants of the Vosges will sometimes bury their
extracted teeth secretly, marking the spot well so that
they may be able to walk straight to it on the resurrection
day.4 The pains taken by the Chinese to preserve corpses
entire and free from decay seems to rest on a firm belief in
the resurrection of the dead ; hence it is natural to find their
ancient books laying down a rule that the hair, nails, and
teeth which have fallen out during life should be buried with
the dead in the coffin, or at least in the grave.5 The Fors
of Central Africa object to cut any one else's nails, for
should the part cut off be lost and not delivered into its
owner's hands, it will have to be made up to him somehow
or other after death. The parings are buried in the ground.6
Some people burn their loose hair to save it from falling
into the power of sorcerers. This is done by the Patagonians
and some of the Victorian tribes.' In the Upper Vosges
they say that you should never leave the clippings of your
hair and nails lying about, but burn them to hinder the
sorcerers from using them against you.8 For the same
reason Italian women either burn their loose hairs or throw
them into a place where no one is likely to look for them.9
The almost universal dread of witchcraft induces the West
1 Milusine, 1878,0. 583.57/. 6 R. W. Felkin, "Notes on the
2 The People of Turkey, by a Con- For Tribe of Central Africa," Proceed-
sul's daughter and wife, ii. 250. ings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,
3 Boeder- Kreutzwald, Der Ehsten xiii. (1884-86), p. 230.
aberglciubische Gcbrauche, Weisen und "' Musters, " On the Races of Pata-
Gewohnheiten, p. 139; F. J. "Wiede- gonia," Journ. Anthrop. Inst.i. (1872),
mann, Aus dem innem und dussern p. 197; J.Dawson, Australian Abori-
Leben der Ehsten, p. 491. gines, p. 36.
4 L. F. Sauve, Folk-lore des Hautes- 8 L. F. Sauve, Folk-lore des Hautes-
Vosges, p. 41. Vosges, p. 170.
5 J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious 9 Z. Zanetti, La medicina delle
System of China, i. 342 sq. (Leyden, nostre donne (Citta di Castello, 1S92),
1892). p. 234 sq.
VOL. I 2 C
386 HAIR AND NAILS BURNT chap.
African negroes, the Makololo of South Africa, and the
Tahitians to burn or bury their shorn hair.1 One of the
pygmies who roam through the gloomy depths of the vast
Central African forests has been seen to collect carefully the
clippings of his hair in a packet of banana leaves and keep
them till next morning, when, the camp'( breaking up for the
day's march, he threw them into the hot ashes of the aban-
doned fire.2 In the Tyrol many people burn their hair lest
the witches should use it to raise thunderstorms ; others
burn or bury it to prevent the birds from lining their nests
with it, which would cause the heads from which the hair
came to ache.3 Cut and combed-out hair is burned in
Pomerania and sometimes in Belgium.4 In Norway the
parings of nails are either burned or buried, lest the elves
or the Finns should find them and make them into bullets
wherewith to shoot the cattle.5 In Corea all the clippings
and combings of the hair of a whole family are carefully
preserved throughout the year and then burned in potsherds
outside the house on the evening of New Year's Day. At
such seasons the streets of Seoul, the capital, present a weird
spectacle. They are for the most part silent and deserted,
sometimes muffled deep in snow ; but through the dusk of
twilight red lights glimmer at every door, where little groups
are busy tending tiny fires whose flickering flames cast a
ruddy fitful glow on the moving figures. The burning of
the hair in these fires is thought to exclude demons from
the house for a year ; but coupled with this belief may well
be, or once have been, a wish to put these relics out of the
reach of witches and wizards.6
This destruction of the hair and nails plainly involves
1 A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking Meinungen des Tiroler Volkes, p. 28,
Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 99 ; Miss §§ 177, 179, 180.
Mary H. Kingsley, Travels in West 4 M. Jahn, Hexenwesen una1 Zau-
Africa, p. 447 ; David Livingstone, berei in Pommern, p. 15 ; Mc'lusine,
Narrative of Expedition to the Zambesi, 1878, c. 79; E. Monseur, Le Folklore
p. 46 sq. ; W. Ellis, Polynesian Re- Wallon, p. 91.
searches, i. 365. In some parts of 5 E. H. Meyer, Indogermanische
New Guinea cut hair is destroyed for Mythen, ii. Achilleis (Berlin, 1877), p.
the same reason (H. H. Romilly, 523.
From my Verandah in New Guinea, 6 P. Lowell, Choson, the Land of
London, 1889, p. 83). the Morning Calm, a Sketch of Korea
2 Fr. Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha (London, preface dated 1885), pp. 199-
ins Herz von Afrika, p. 451. 201 ; Mrs. Bishop, Korea and her
3 Zingerle, Sitten, Brduche und Neighbours (London, 1898), ii. 55 sq.
II
HAIR INFECTED BY TABOO
387
an inconsistency of thought. The object of the destruction
is avowedly to prevent these severed portions of the body
from being used by sorcerers. But the possibility of their
being so used depends upon the supposed sympathetic con-
nection between them and the man from whom they were
severed. And if this sympathetic connection still exists,
clearly these severed portions cannot be destroyed without
injury to the man.
Before leaving this subject, on which I have perhaps
dwelt too long, it may be well to call attention to the motive
assigned for cutting a young child's hair in Rotti.1 In that
island the first hair is regarded as a danger to the child, and
its removal is intended to avert the danger. The reason of
this may be that as a young child is almost universally
supposed to be in a tabooed or dangerous state, it is
necessary, in removing the taboo, to remove also the separable
parts of the child's body because they are infected, so to
say, by the virus of the taboo and as such are dangerous.
The cutting of the child's hair would thus be exactly parallel
to the destruction of the vessels which have been used by a
tabooed person.2 This view is borne out by a practice,
observed by some Australians, of burning off part of a
woman's hair after childbirth as well as burning every vessel
which has been used by her during her seclusion.3 Here
the burning of the woman's hair seems plainly intended to
serve the same purpose as the burning of the vessels used by
her ; and as the vessels are burned because they are believed
to be tainted with a dangerous infection, so, we must suppose,
is also the hair. We can, therefore, understand the import-
ance attached by many peoples to the first cutting of a
child's hair and the elaborate ceremonies by which the
operation is accompanied.4 Again, we can understand why
1 Above, p. 381 sq.
2 Above, pp. 235, 324, 325, 327,
330, 339. 342.
3 W. Ridley, " Report on Australian
Languages and Traditions," Journ.
Anihrop. Inst. ii. (1873), p. 268. So
among the Latuka of Central Africa, a
woman is secluded for fourteen days after
the birth of her child, and at the end
of her seclusion her hair is shaved off
and burnt (Fr. Stuhlmann, Mit Emiu
Pascha ins Herz von Afrika, p. 795).
4 See G. A. Wilken, Ueber das
Haaropfer und einige andere Trauerge-
briiuche bei den Vblkern Indonesiens,
p. 94 sqq. ; H. Ploss, Das Kind in
Branch nnd Sitte der Volker? i. 289
sqq. ; K. Potkanski, " Die Ceremonie
der Haarschur bei den Slaven und Ger-
388 HAIR INFECTED BY TABOO chap.
a man should poll his head after a journey.1 For. we have
seen that a traveller is often believed to contract a dangerous
infection from strangers, and that, therefore, on his return
home he is obliged to submit to various purificatory cere-
monies before he is allowed to mingle freely with his own
people.'2 On my hypothesis the polling of the hair is simply
one of these purificatory or disinfectant ceremonies. Certainly
this explanation applies to the custom as practised by the
Bechuanas, for we are expressly told that " they cleanse or
purify themselves after journeys by shaving their heads, etc.,
lest they should have contracted from strangers some evil
by witchcraft or sorcery."5 The cutting of the hair
after a vow may have the same meaning. It is a
way of ridding the man of what has been infected by the
dangerous state of taboo, sanctity, or uncleanness (for all
these are only different expressions for the same primitive
conception) under which he laboured during the continuance
of the vow. Still more clearly does the meaning of the
practice come out in the case of mourners, who cut their
hair and nails and use new vessels when the period of their
mourning is at an end. This was done in ancient India,
obviously for the purpose of purifying such persons from the
dangerous influence of death and the ghost to which for a
time they had been exposed.4 At Hierapolis no man might
enter the great temple of Astarte on the same day on which
he had seen a corpse ; next day he might enter, provided he
had first purified himself. But the kinsmen of the deceased
were not allowed to set foot in the sanctuary for thirty days
after the death, and before doing so they had to shave
their heads.5 At Agweh, on the Slave Coast of West
Africa, widows and widowers at the end of their period
of mourning wash themselves, shave their heads, pare
their nails, and put on new cloths ; and the old cloths,
the shorn hair, and the nail-parings are all burnt.1' The
manen," Anzeiger der Akademie der Africa, Second Journey (London, 1S22),
IVissenschaften in Krakau, May 1896, ii. 205.
pp. 232-251. 4 H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des
1 Above, p. 369 sq. Vefa' P- 426 sq.
.... ' 6 Lucian, De dea Syria, <:?.
- Above, p. 306 sq. e A R m[^ ^ Ewe-sfeaking
'■'■ J. Campbell, Travels in South Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 160.
II
HAIR INFECTED BY TABOO 389
Kayans of Borneo are not allowed to cut their hair or shave
their temples during the period of mourning ; but as soon
as the mourning is ended by the ceremony of bringing home
a newly severed human head, the barber's knife is kept busy
enough. As each man leaves the barber's hands, he gathers
up the shorn locks and spitting on them murmurs a prayer
to the evil spirits not to harm him. He then blows the
hair out of the verandah of the house.1 When a Wakikuyu
woman has, in accordance with custom, exposed her mis-
shapen or prematurely born infant in the wood for the
hyenas to devour, she is shaved on her return by an old
woman and given a magic potion to drink ; after which she
is regarded as clean.2 Similarly at some Hindoo places of
pilgrimage on the banks of rivers men who have committed
great crimes or are troubled by uneasy consciences have
every hair shaved off by professional barbers before they
plunge into the sacred stream, from which " they emerge
new creatures, with all the accumulated guilt of a long life
effaced." The matricide Orestes is said to have polled his
hair after appeasing the angry Furies of his murdered
mother.4
The same fear of witchcraft which has led so many
people to hide or destroy their loose hair and nails has
induced other or the same people to treat their spittle in a
like fashion. For on the principles of sympathetic magic
the spittle is part of the man, and whatever is done to it will
have a corresponding effect on him. A Chilote Indian, who
has gathered up the spittle of an enemy, will put it in a
potato, and hang the potato in the smoke, uttering certain
1 W. H. Furness, Folk-lore in Bor- 3 Monier Williams, Religious
neo (Wallingford, Pennsylvania, 1899; Thought and Life in India, -p. 375.
privately printed), p. 28. 4 Strabo, xii. 2. 3 ; Pausanias, viii.
2 J. M. Hildebrandt, " Ethno- 34. 3. In two paintings on Greek
graphische Notizen iiber Wakamba und vases we see Apollo in his character
ihre Nachbarn," Zeitschrift fiir Ethno- of the purifier preparing to cut
logie, x. (1878), p. 395. Children who off the hair of Orestes. See Alonu-
are born in an unusual position, the menti Inediti, 1847, pi- 4-8 \ Annali
second born of twins, and children del! Instituto di Corrispondenza
whose upper teeth appear before the Archeologica, 1847, pi. x. ; Archaeo-
lower, are similarly exposed by the logische Zeili/ng, 1S60, pi. cxxxvii.
Wakikuyu. The mother is regarded as cxxxviii. ; L. Stephani, in Cotnpte
unclean, not so much because she has Rendu de la Commission Archiolo-
exposed, as because she has given gique (St. Petersburg), 1863, p.
birth to such a child. 271 sq.
39°
MAGIC USE OF SPITTLE
CHAP.
spells as he does so in the belief that his foe will waste away
as the potato dries in the smoke. Or he will put the spittle
in a frog and throw the animal into an inaccessible, un-
navigable river, which will make the victim quake and shake
with ague.1 If a Wotjobaluk sorcerer cannot get the hair of
his foe, a shred of his rug, or something else that belongs to the
man, he will watch till he sees him spit, when he will carefully
pick up the spittle with a stick and use it for the destruction
of the careless spitter.2 Hence among some tribes of South
Africa no man will spit when an enemy is near, lest his foe
should find the spittle and give it to a wizard, who would
then mix it with magical ingredients so as to injure the
person from whom it fell. Even in a man's own house his
saliva is carefully swept away and obliterated for a similar
reason.3 Negroes of Senegal, the Bissagos Archipelago, and
some of the West Indian Islands, such as Guadeloupe and
Martinique, are also careful to efface their spittle by press-
ing it into the ground with their feet, lest a sorcerer should
use it to their hurt.4 If common folk are thus cautious, it is
natural that kings and chiefs should be doubly so. In the
Sandwich Islands chiefs were attended by a confidential
servant bearing a portable spittoon, and the deposit was care-
fully buried every morning to put it out of the reach of
sorcerers.5 On the Slave Coast of Africa, for the same
reason, whenever a king or chief expectorates, the saliva is
scrupulously gathered up and hidden or buried.6 At Bule-
bane, in Senegambia, a French traveller observed a captive
engaged, with an air of great importance, in covering over
with sand all the spittle that fell from the lips of a native
dignitary ; the man used a small stick for the purpose.'
Page-boys, who carry tails of elephants, hasten to sweep up
or cover with sand the spittle of the King of Ashantee,s and
1 C. Martin, " Ueber die Einge-
borenen von Chiloe," Zeitschrift fur
Ethnologic, ix. (1877), p. 177 sq.
2 A. W. Howitt, "On Australian
Medicine-men, "Journal of the Anthro-
pological Institute, xvi. (1887), p. 27.
3 Rev. J. Macdonald, Light in
Africa, p. 209; id., in Journal of the
Anthropological Institute, xx. (1891),
p. 131.
4 C. de Mensignac, Recherches
Ethnographiques stir la Salive ei le
Crachat (Bordeaux, 1892), p. 48 sq.
0 W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i.
365.
e A. B. Ellis, The Eive-speaking
Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 99.
7 A. Raffenel, Voyage dans V Afrique
occidentale (Paris, 1846), p. 338.
8 C. de Mensignac, op. cit. p. 48.
ii TABOOED FOODS 391
a custom of the same sort prevails or used to prevail at the
court of the Muata Jamwo in the valley of the Congo.1
As might have been expected, the superstitions of the
savage cluster thick about the subject of food ; and he
abstains from eating many animals and plants, wholesome
enough in themselves, but which for one reason or another
he fancies would prove dangerous or fatal to the eater.
Examples of such abstinence are too familiar and far too
numerous to quote. But if the ordinary man is thus deterred
by superstitious fear from partaking of various foods, the
restraints of this kind which are laid upon sacred or tabooed
persons, such as kings and priests, are still more numerous
and stringent. We have already seen that the Flamen
Dialis was forbidden to eat or even name several plants and
animals, and that the flesh diet of the Egyptian kings was
restricted to veal and goose.'2 The Gangas or fetish priests
of the Loango Coast are forbidden to eat or even see a
variety of animals and fish, in consequence of which their
flesh diet is extremely limited ; often they live only on
herbs and roots, though they may drink fresh blood.3 The
heir to the throne of Loango is forbidden from infancy to
eat pork ; from early childhood he is interdicted the use of
the cola fruit in company ; at puberty he is taught by a
priest not to partake of fowls except such as he has himself
killed and cooked ; and so the number of taboos goes on
increasing with his years.4 In Fernando Po the king after
installation is forbidden to eat cocco (arum acaule), deer, and
porcupine, which are the ordinary foods of the people.5
Amongst the Murrams of Manipur (a district of Eastern
India, on the border of Burma), "there are many prohibitions
in regard to the food, both animal and vegetable, which the
chief should eat, and the Murrams say the chief's post must
be a very uncomfortable one." 6 To explain the ultimate
1 R. Andree,Et/inograp/iisc/ie Paral- 4 Dapper, Description de PAfriqnc,
lelen und Vergleiche, Neue Folge, p. p. 336.
13- 5 T. J. Hutchinson, Impressions of
2 Above, pp. 241, 242. Western Africa (London, 1858), p.
3 Bastian, Die deutsche Expedition 198.
an der Loango- Kiiste, ii. 170. The G G. Watt (quoting Col. W. J.
blood may perhaps be drunk by them M'CulIoeh), "The Aboriginal Tribes
as a medium of inspiration. See of Manipur," in fount. Anthrop. Inst.
above, p. 133 sqq. xvi. (1887), p. 360.
392
AW'OTS AT CHILDBIRTH
CHAP.
reason why any particular food is prohibited to a whole',
tribe or to certain of its members would commonly require |
a far more intimate knowledge of the history and beliefs of;
the tribe than we possess. The general motive of such;
prohibitions is doubtless the same which underlies the'
whole taboo system, namely, the conservation of the tribe^
and the individual.
We have seen that among the many taboos which the
Flamen Dialis at Rome had to observe, there was one that
forbade him to have a knot on any part of his garments,
and another that obliged him to wear no ring unless it were
broken.1 These rules are probably of kindred significance,
and may conveniently be considered together. To begin
with knots, many people in different parts of the world
entertain a strong objection to having any knot about their
person at certain critical seasons, particularly childbirth,
marriage, and death. Thus among the Saxons of Transyl-
vania, when a woman is in travail all knots on her garments
are untied, because it is believed that this will facilitate her
delivery, and with the same intention all the locks in the
house, whether on doors or boxes, are unlocked.2 The
Lapps think that a lying-in woman should have no knot on
her garments, because a knot would have the effect of
making the delivery difficult and painful.3 In the East
Indies this superstition is extended to the whole time of
pregnancy ; the people believe that if a pregnant woman
were to tie knots, or braid, or make anything fast, the child
would thereby be constricted or the woman would herself be
"tied up" when her time came.4 Nay, some of them enforce
the observance of the rule on the father as well as the mother
of the unborn child. Among the Sea Dyaks neither of the
parents may bind up anything with string or make anything
1 Aulus Gellius, x. 15. 6 and 9.
- J. Hillner, Volksthiimlicher Branch
itnd Glanbe bei Geburt iind Taufc im
Siebenbiirger Sachsenlande, p. 15.
3 C. Leemius, De Lapponibus Fin-
viarchiae eor unique lingua, vita, et
religione pristina commentatio (Copen-
hagen, 1767), p. 494-
4 J. Kreemer, " Hoe de Javaan zijne
zieken verzorgt," Mededeelingen van
wege het Nederlandsche Zendelingge-
nootschap, xxxvi. (1892), p. 114;
C. M. Pleyte, " Plechtigheden en
Gebruiken uit den cyclus van het
familienleven der volken van den In-
dischen Archipel," Bijdragen tot de
Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
Nederlandsch- Indie ', xli. (1892), p.
586.
n KNOTS AT CHILDBIRTH 393
fast during the wife's pregnancy.1 Among the Land Dyaks
the husband of the expectant mother is bound to refrain
from tying things together with rattans until after her
delivery." In the Toumbuluh tribe of North Celebes a
ceremony is performed in the fourth or fifth month of a
woman's pregnancy, and after it her husband is forbidden,
among many other things, to tie any fast knots and to sit
with his legs crossed over each other.3 In all these cases
the idea seems to be that the tying of a knot would, as they
say in the East Indies, "tie up" the woman, in other words
impede and perhaps prevent her delivery. On the principles
of sympathetic or imitative magic the physical obstacle or
impediment of a knot on a cord would create a correspond-
ing obstacle or impediment in the body of the woman.
That this is really the explanation of the rule appears from
the custom observed by the same peoples of opening all
locks, doors, and so on, while a birth is taking place in the
house. We have seen that at such a time the Germans of
Transylvania open all the locks, and the same thing is done
also in Voigtland and Mecklenburg.4 Among the Mandelings
of Sumatra the lids of all chests, boxes, pans, and so forth, are
opened ; and if this does not produce the desired effect, the
anxious husband has to strike the projecting ends of some
of the house-beams in order to loosen them ; for they think
that "everything must be open and loose to facilitate the
delivery." In some parts of Java, when a woman is in
travail, everything in the house that was shut is opened, in
order that the birth may not be impeded ; not only are doors
opened and the lids of chests, boxes, rice-pots, and water-
buts lifted up, but even swords are unsheathed and spears
drawn out of their cases.0 Customs of the same sort
1 H. Ling Roth, The Natives of glazibe,2 p. 355, § 574.
Sarawak and British North Borneo, 5 H. Ris, " Ue onderafdeeling
i- 98. Klein Mandailing Oeloe en Pahantan
2 Spenser St. John, Life in the en hare Bevolking," Bijdragen tot de
Forests of the Far East,- i. 170. Taal-Land-en Volkenkunde van Neder-
3 J. G. F. Riedel, " Alte Gebrauche landsch-Indie, xlvi. (1896), p. 503.
bei Heirathen, Geburt und Sterbefallen c Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-
bei dem Toumbuluh - Stamm in der Land- en Volkenkunde, xxvi. 310 ; J.
Minahasa (Nord Selebes)," Interna- Kreemer, " Hoe de Javaan zijne zieken
tionales Arehiv fiir Ethnographie, viii. verzorgt," Mededeelingen van wege hct
(i89S)> P- 95 Sl7- Nederlandscke Zendelinggenootschap,
4 Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaber- xxxvi. (1892), pp. 120, 124.
394 KNOTS AT CHILDBIRTH chap.
arc practised with the same intention in other parts
of the East Indies.1 Again, we have seen that a Toum-
buluh man abstains not only from tying knots, but
also from sitting with crossed legs during his wife's
pregnancy. The train of thought is the same in both
cases. Whether you cross threads in tying a knot, or only
cross your legs in sitting at your ease, you are equally, on
the principles of sympathetic magic, crossing or thwarting
the free course of things, and your action cannot but check}
and impede whatever may be going forward in your neigh-:
bourhood. Of this important truth the Romans were fully
aware. To sit beside a pregnant woman or a patient under i
medical treatment with clasped hands, says the grave Pliny,!
is to cast a malignant spell over the person, and it is worse;
still if you nurse your leg or legs with your clasped hands,
or lay one leg over the other. Such postures were regarded
by the old Romans as a let and hindrance to business of
every sort, and at a council of war or a meeting of magis-
trates, at prayers and sacrifices, no man was suffered to
cross his legs or clasp his hands.2 The stock instance of
the dreadful consequences that might flow from doing one
or the other was that of Alcmena, who travailed with
Hercules for seven days and seven nights, because the
goddess Lucina sat in front of the house with clasped hands
and crossed legs, and the child could not be born until the
goddess had been beguiled into changing her attitude.3
The magical effect of knots in trammelling and obstruct-
ing human activity was believed to be manifested at
marriage not less than at birth. During the Middle Ages,
and down to the eighteenth century, it seems to have been
commonly held in Europe that the consummation of
marriage could be prevented by any one who, while the
wedding ceremony was taking place, either locked a lock or
tied a knot in a cord, and then threw the lock or the cord
1 Van Hasselt, Volksbeschrijving toninus Liberalis, quoting Nicander,
van Midden-Sumatra (Leyden, 1882), says it was the Fates and Uithyia who
p. 266 ; J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- impeded the birth of Hercules, and
en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes though he says they clasped their
en Papua, pp. 135, 207, 325. hands, he does not say that they
2 Pliny, Nat. Hist, xxviii. 59. crossed their legs (Transform. 29).
3 Ovid, Metam. ix. 2S5 sqq. An- Compare Pausanias, ix. II. 3.
ii KNOTS AT MARRIAGE 395
away. The lock or the knotted cord had to be flung into
water ; and until it had been found and unlocked, or untied,
no real union of the married pair was possible.1 Hence it
was a grave offence, not only to cast such a spell, but also
to steal or make away with the material instrument of it,
whether lock or knotted cord. In the year 1 7 1 8 the par-
liament of Bordeaux sentenced some one to be burned alive
for having spread desolation through a whole family by means
of knotted cords ; and in 1705 two persons were condemned
to death in Scotland for stealing certain charmed knots which
a woman had made, in order thereby to mar the wedded
happiness of Spalding of Ashintilly.2 The belief in the effi-
cacy of these charms appears to have lingered in the Highlands
of Perthshire down to the end of the eighteenth century, for
at that time it was still customary in the beautiful parish of
Logierait, between the River Tummel and the River Tay, to
unloose carefully every knot in the clothes of the bride and
bridegroom before the celebration of the marriage ceremony.
When the ceremony was over, and the bridal party had left
the church, the bridegroom immediately retired one way
with some young men to tie the knots that had been loosed
a little before ; and the bride in like manner withdrew
somewhere else to adjust the disorder of her dress.3 In
some parts of the Highlands it was deemed enough that
the bridegroom's left shoe should be without buckle or
latchet, " to prevent witches from depriving him, on the
nuptial night, of the power of loosening the virgin zone." 4
We meet with the same superstition and the same custom
1 Grimm, Deutsche Mythologies ii. that "the precaution of loosening
§97> 983 ; Brand, Popular Anti- every knot about the new-joined pair
quities, iii. 299 ; Dalyell, Darker is strictly observed " (Pinkerton's Voy-
Superstitions of Scotland, pp. 302, ages and Travels, iii. 382). He is
306 sq. ; B. Souche, Croyances, Pre- here speaking particularly of the
sages et Traditions diverses, p. 16; J. G. Perthshire Highlands.
Bourke, in Ninth Annual Report of i Pennant, "Tour in Scotland,"
the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, iii.
1892), p. 567. 91. However, at a marriage in the
2 -p. , 11 // . Island of Skye, the same traveller ob-
^ ' ' served that "the bridegroom put all
3 Rev. Dr. Th. Bisset, in Sinclair's the powers of magic to defiance, for
Statistical Account of Scot/and, v. he was married with both shoes tied
83. In his account of the second with their latchet " (Pennant, " Second
tour which he made in Scotland in Tour in Scotland," Pinkerton's Voyages
the summer of 1772, Pennant says and Travels, iii. 325).
396 KNOTS AT MARRIAGE chap.
at the present day in Syria. The persons who help a
Syrian bridegroom to don his wedding garments take care
that no knot is tied on them and no button buttoned, for
they believe that a button buttoned or a knot tied would
put it within the power of his enemies to deprive him of his
nuptial rights by magical means.1 In Lesbos the malignant
person who would thus injure a bridegroom on his wedding day
ties a thread to a bush, while he utters imprecations ; but the
bridegroom can defeat the spell by wearing at his girdle a
piece of an old net or of an old mantilla belonging to the
bride in which knots have been tied." A curious use is
made of knots at marriage in the little East Indian island
of Rotti. When a man has paid the price of his bride, a
cord is fastened round her waist, if she is a maid, but not
otherwise. Nine knots are tied in the cord, and in order to
make them harder to unloose, they are smeared with wax.
Bride and bridegroom are then secluded in a chamber, where
he has to untie the knots with the thumb and forefinger of
his left hand only. It may be from one to twelve months
before he succeeds in undoing them all. Until he has done
so he may not look on the woman as his wife. In no case
may the cord be broken, or the bridegroom would render
himself liable to any fine that the bride's father might choose
to impose. When all the knots are loosed, the woman is
his wife, and he shows the cord to her father, and generally
presents his wife with a golden or silver necklace instead
of the cord.3 The meaning of this custom is not clear, but
we may conjecture that the nine knots refer to the nine
months of pregnancy, and that miscarriage would be the
supposed result of leaving a single knot untied.
The maleficent power of knots may also be manifested
in the infliction of sickness and disease. Babylonian witches
and wizards of old used to strangle their victim, seal his
mouth, wrack his limbs, and tear his entrails by merely tying
1 Eijiib Abela, " Beitrage zur Schoolmeester," Tijdschrift voor Lnd-
Kenntniss aberglaubischer Gebrauche ische Tacd- Land- enVblkenkunde,\xv\i.
in Syrien," Zeitschrift des deutschen (1882), p. 554 ; N. Graafland, "Eenige
Palaestina-Vereins, vii. (1884), p. 91 sq. aanteekeningen op ethnographisch
2 Georgeakis et Pineau, Folk-lore de gebied ten aanzien van het eiland Rote,"
Lesbos, p. 344 sq. Mededeelingen van wege het Neder-
3 " Eenige Mededeelingen betref- landsche Zendelinggenootschap, xxxiii.
fende Rote door een inlandischen (18S9), p. 373 sq.
II
KNOTS MAKE SICK 397
knots in a cord, while at each knot they muttered a spell.
But happily the evil could be undone by simply undoing the
knots.1 We hear of a man in one of the Orkney Islands
who was utterly ruined by nine knots cast on a blue thread ;
and it would seem that sick people in Scotland sometimes
prayed to the devil to restore them to health by loosing the
secret knot that was doing all the mischief.2 In the Koran
:here is an allusion to the mischief of " those who puff into
:he knots," and an Arab commentator on the passage explains
:hat the words refer to women who practise magic by tying
mots in cords, and then blowing and spitting upon them.
He goes on to relate how, once upon a time, a wicked Jew
bewitched the prophet Mohammed himself by tying nine
knots on a string, which he then hid in a well. So the
prophet fell ill, and nobody knows what might have happened
if the archangel Gabriel had not opportunely revealed to the
holy man the place where the knotted cord was concealed.
The trusty Ali soon fetched the baleful thing from the well ;
and the prophet recited over it certain charms, which were
specially revealed to him for the purpose. At every verse of
the charms a knot untied itself, and the prophet experienced
a certain relief.3 It will hardly be disputed that by tying
knots on the string the pestilent Hebrew contrived, if I may
say so, to constrict or astringe or, in short, to tie up some
vital organ or organs in the prophet's stomach. At least
we are informed that something of this sort is done by
Australian blackfellows at the present day, and if so, why
should it not have been done by Arabs in the time of
Mohammed ? The Australian mode of operation is as
follows. When a blackfellow wishes to settle old scores
with another blackfellow, he ties a rope of fibre or bark
so tightly round the neck of his slumbering friend as to
partially choke him. Having done this he takes out the
man's caul-fat from under his short rib, ties up his inside
carefully with string, replaces the skin, and having effaced
all external marks of the wound, makes off with the stolen
1 M. Jastrow, The Religion of Baby- Koran, chap, iij, verse 4. I have to
Ionia and Assyria, pp. 268, 270. thank my friend Prof. A. A. Bevan
2 Dalyell, Darker Siiperstitions of for indicating this passage to me,
Scotland, p. 307. and furnishing me with a translation
3 Al BaidawTs Commentary on the of it.
398
KNOTS AS CURES
CHAP.
fat. The victim on awakening feels no inconvenience, but
sooner or later, sometimes months afterwards, while he is
hunting or exerting himself violently in some other way, he
will feel the string snap in his inside. " Hallo," says he,
" somebody has tied me up inside with string ! " and he
goes home to the camp and dies on the spot.1 Who can
doubt but that in this lucid diagnosis we have the true
key to the prophet's malady, and that he too might have
succumbed to the wiles of his insidious foe if it had not
been for the timely intervention of the archangel Gabriel ?
If knots are supposed to kill, they are also supposed to
cure. This follows from the belief that to undo the knots
which are causing sickness will bring the sufferer relief. But
apart from this negative virtue of maleficent knots, there are
certain beneficent knots to which a positive power of healing
is ascribed. Pliny tells us that some folk cured diseases of
the groin by taking a thread from a web, tying seven or nine
knots on it, and then fastening it to the patient's groin ; but
to make the cure effectual it was necessary to name some
widow as each knot was tied.2 In Argyleshire threads with
three knots on them are still used to cure the internal ail-
ments of man and beast. The witch rubs the sick person
or cow with the knotted thread, burns two of the knots in
the fire, saying, " I put the disease and the sickness on the
top of the fire," and ties the rest of the thread with the single
knot round the neck of the person or the tail of the cow,
but always so that it may not be seen.3
On the principle that prevention is better than cure,
Zulu hunters immediately tie a knot in the tail of any animal
1 E. Palmer, " Notes on some purposes Highland sorcerers used three
' Australian Tribes," Journal of the
Anthropological Institute, xiii. (1884),
p. 293. The Tahitians ascribed cer-
tain painful illnesses to the twisting and
knotting of their insides by demons
(W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i.
363)-
2 Pliny, Nat. Hist, xxviii. 48.
3 R. C. Maclagan, M.D., "Notes
on Folklore Objects collected in Argyle-
shire," Folk-lore, vi. (1895), pp. 154-
156. Dalyell says that for maleficent
threads of different colours, with three
knots tied on each thread ; and he
aptly compares the mention of a love-
charm of the very same sort in Virgil
{Eel. viii. 78 sq.). See Dalyell,
Darker Superstitions of Scotland, p.
306. In the north-west of Ireland
divination by means of a knotted
thread is practised in order to discover
whether a sick beast will recover or
die. See E. B. Tylor, in Interna-
tional Folk-lore Congress, i8gi, Papers
and Transactions, p. 391 sq.
ii KNOTS AS AMULETS 399
they have killed, because they believe that this will hinder
the meat from giving them pains in their stomachs.1 An
ancient Hindoo book recommends that travellers on a danger-
ous road should tie knots in the skirts of their garments, for
this will cause their journey to prosper.' Similarly among
some Caffre tribes, when a man is going on a doubtful journey,
he knots a few blades of grass together that the journey may
turn out well.3 In Laos hunters fancy that they can throw
a spell over a forest so as to prevent any one else from
hunting there successfully. Having killed game of any kind,
they utter certain magical words, while they knot together
some stalks of grass, adding, " As I knot this grass, so let
no hunter be lucky here." The virtue of this spell will last,
as usually happens in such cases, so long as the stalks
remain knotted together.4 In Russia amulets often derive
their protective virtue in great measure from knots. Here,
for example, is a spell which will warrant its employer
against all risk of being shot : " I attach five knots to each
hostile, infidel shooter, over arquebuses, bows, and all manner
of warlike weapons. Do ye, O knots, bar the shooter from
every road and way, lock fast every arquebuse, entangle
every bow, involve all warlike weapons, so that the shooters
may not reach me with their arquebuses, nor may their
arrows attain to me, nor their warlike weapons do me hurt.
In my knots lies hid the mighty strength of snakes — from
the twelve-headed snake." A net, from its affluence of
knots, has always been considered in Russia very efficacious
against sorcerers ; hence in some places, when a bride is
being dressed in her wedding attire, a fishing-net is flung
over her to keep her out of harm's way. For a similar
purpose the bridegroom, as in Lesbos, and his companions
are often girt with pieces of net, or at least with tight-
drawn girdles, for before a wizard can begin to injure them
he must undo all the knots in the net, or take off the girdles.
But often a Russian amulet is merely a knotted thread. A
skein of red wool wound about the arms and legs is thought
1 David Leslie, Among the Zulus 3 J. Shooter, The Kafirs of Natal
and Amatongas (Edinburgh, 1875), and the Zulu Country, p. 217 sq.
p. 147.
2 Gnhya-Sidras, translated by H. 4 E. Aymonier, Notes sur le Laos
Oldenberg, vol. i. p. 432. (Saigon, 1885), p. 23 sq.
4oo KNOTS AS AMULETS chap.
to ward off agues and fevers ; and nine skeins, fastened round
a child's neck, are deemed a preservative against scarlatina.
In the Tver Government a bag of a special kind is tied
to the neck of the cow which walks before the rest of a
herd, in order to keep off wolves ; its force binds the maw
of the ravening beast. On the same principle, a padlock is
carried thrice round a herd of horses before they go afield
in the spring, and the bearer locks and unlocks it as
he goes, saying, " I lock from my herd the mouths of the
grey wolves with this steel lock." After the third round
the padlock is finally locked, and then, when the horses have
gone off, it is hidden away somewhere till late in the autumn,
when the time comes for the drove to return to winter
quarters. In this case the " firm word " of the spell is sup-
posed to lock up the mouths of the wolves. The Bulgarians
have a similar mode of guarding their cattle against wild
beasts. A woman takes a needle and thread after dark,
and sews together the skirt of her dress. A child asks her
what she is doing, and she tells him that she is sewing up
the ears, eyes, and jaws of the wolves so that they may not
hear, see, or bite the sheep, goats, calves, and pigs.1 Similarly
in antiquity a witch fancied that she could shut the mouths
of her enemies by sewing up the mouth of a fish with a
bronze needle,1' and farmers attempted to ward off hail from
their crops ^by tying keys to ropes all round the fields.3 To
this day a Transylvanian sower thinks he can keep birds
from the corn by carrying a lock in the seed-bag.4 Such
magical uses of locks and keys are clearly parallel to the
magical use of knots, with which we are here concerned.
In Ceylon the Cingalese observe "a curious custom of the
threshing-floor called ' Goigote ' — the tying of the cultivator's
knot. When a sheaf of corn has been threshed out, before
it is removed the grain is heaped up and the threshers,
generally six in number, sit round it, and taking a few stalks,
with the ears of corn attached, jointly tie a knot and bury
it in the heap. It is left there until all the sheaves have
1 W. R. S. Ralston, Songs of the p. 309 sq.
Russian People, pp. 38S-390. 3 Geoponica, i. 14.
2 Ovid, Fasti, ii. 577 sqq. ; com- 4 A. Heinrich, Agrarische Sitten und
pare W. Warde Fowler, Roman fes- Gebrauche unter den Sachsen Sieben-
tivals of the period of the Republic, biirgens, p. 9.
ii KNOTS AND RINGS 401
been threshed, and the corn winnowed and measured. The
object of this ceremony is to prevent the devils from dimin-
ishing the quantity of corn in the heap." 1
The precise mode in which the virtue of the knot is
supposed to take effect in some of these cases does not
clearly appear. But in general we may say that in all
the cases we have been considering the leading charac-
teristic of the magic knot or lock is that, in strict accordance
with its physical nature, it always acts as an impediment,
hindrance, or obstacle, and that its influence is maleficent or
beneficent according as the thing which it impedes or hinders
is good or evil. The obstructive tendency attributed to the
knot in spiritual matters appears in a Swiss superstition
that if, in sewing a corpse into its shroud, you make a
knot on the thread, it will hinder the soul of the deceased
on its passage to eternity.2 The Germans of Transylvania
place a little pillow with the dead in the coffin ; but in
sewing it they take great care not to make any knot on the
thread, for they say that to do so would hinder the dead man
from resting in the grave and his widow from marrying again.3
A similar belief as to rings is held in the Greek island
of Carpathus, where the people never button the clothes they
put upon a dead body and are careful to remove all rings
from it ; " for the spirit, they say, can even be detained in
the little finger, and cannot rest." 4 Here it is plain that
even if the soul is not definitely supposed to issue at death
from the finger-tips, yet the ring is conceived to exercise a
certain constrictive influence which detains and imprisons
the immortal spirit in spite of its efforts to escape from the
tabernacle of clay ; in short the ring, like the knot, acts as
a spiritual fetter. This may have been the reason of an
ancient Greek maxim, attributed to Pythagoras, which for-
bade people to wear rings.5 Nobody might enter the ancient
1 C. J. R. Le Mesurier, "Customs p. 178, § 25. The belief is reported
and superstitions connected with the from Zurich.
cultivation of rice in the southern 3 E. Gerard, The Land beyond the
province of Ceylon," Journal of the Forest, i. 208.
Royal Asiatic Society, N.S., xvii. 4 "On a far-off Island," Black-
{1885), p. 371. wood's Magazine, February 1886,
2 H. Runge, " Volksglaube in der p. 238.
Schweiz," Zeitschrift fiir deutsche ° Clement of Alexandria, Strom, v.
Mythologie und.Sittenkunde,'\v. (1859), 5. 28, p. 662, ed. Potter; Jamblichus,
VOL. I 2 D
402
RINGS AS AMULETS
CHAP.
Arcadian sanctuary of the Mistress at Lycosura with a
ring on his or her finger.1 On the other hand, the same
constriction which hinders the egress of the soul may prevent
the entrance of evil spirits ; hence we find rings used as
amulets against demons, witches, and ghosts. In the Tyrol
it is said that a woman in childbed should never take off
her wedding-ring, or spirits and witches will have power over
her.2 Among the Lapps, the person who is about to place
a corpse in the coffin receives from the husband, wife, or
children of the deceased a brass ring, which he must wear
fastened to his right arm until the corpse is safely deposited
in the grave. The ring is believed to serve the person as
an amulet against any harm which the ghost might do to
him.3 We have seen that magic cords are fastened round
the wrists of Siamese children to keep off evil spirits ; that
on the return from a funeral the Burmese tie up the wrists
of the surviving members of the family with string in order
to prevent the escape of their souls ; 4 and that with the
same intention the Bagobos put brass rings on the wrists or
ankles of the sick.5 This use of wrist-bands, bracelets, and
anklets as amulets to keep the soul in the body is exactly
parallel to the use of finger-rings which we are here consider
ing. The placing of these spiritual fetters on the wrists is
especially appropriate, because some people fancy that a soul
resides wherever a pulse is felt beating.6 How far the
custom of wearing finger-rings may have been influenced by,
or even have sprung from, a belief in their efficacy as amulets
to keep the soul in or demons out of the body, is a question
Adhortatio ad Philosophiam, 23 ;
Plutarch, De educatione piierornm, 17.
According to others, all that Pytha-
goras forbade was the wearing of a
ring on which the likeness of a god
was engraved (Diogenes Laertius, viii.
1. 17; Porphyry, Vit. Pythag, 42;
Suidas, s.v. YS.vBarybpa.'i) ; according to
Julian a ring was only forbidden if it
bore the names of the gods (Julian, Or.
vii. p. 236 D, p. 306 ed. Dindorf). I
have shown elsewhere that the maxims
or symbols of Pythagoras, as they were
called, are in great measure merely
popular superstitions {Folk-lore, i.
(1890), p. 147 sqq.).
1 This we learn from an inscription
recently found on the site. See E^tj-
/aepis apxaLoXoyiKT), Athens, 1898, col.
249.
2 Zingerle, Sitten, Brauche und
Meinungen des Tiroler Volkes,'1 p. 3.
3 J. Scheffer, Lapponia, p. 313.
4 Above, pp. 264, 375.
0 Above, p. 251.
I! De la Borde, " Relation de l'Ori-
gine, etc., des Caraibes Sauvages," p.
15, in Recueil de divers Voyages faits
en Afrique et en lAmerique (Paris,.
1684).
ii THE GORDIAN KNOT 403
which seems worth considering.1 Here we are only con-
cerned with the belief in so far as it seems to throw light on
the rule that the Flamen Dialis might not wear a ring unless
it were broken. Taken in conjunction with the rule which
forbade him to have a knot on his garments, it points to
a fear that the powerful spirit embodied in him might be
trammelled and hampered in its goings-out and comings-in
by such corporeal and spiritual fetters as rings and knots.
Before quitting the subject of knots I may be allowed
to hazard a conjecture as to the meaning of the famous
Gordian knot, which Alexander the Great, failing in his
efforts to untie it, cut through with his sword. In Gordium,
the ancient capital of the kings of Phrygia, there was pre-
served a waggon of which the yoke was fastened to the pole
by a strip of cornel bark twisted and tied in an intricate
knot. Tradition ran that the waggon had been dedicated
by Midas, the first king of the dynasty, and that whoever
untied the knot would be ruler of Asia.2 Perhaps the knot
was a talisman with which the fate of the dynasty was
believed to be bound up in such a way that whenever the
knot was loosed the reign of the dynasty would come to an
end. We have seen that the magic virtue ascribed to knots
is supposed to last only so long as they remain untied. If
the Gordian knot was the talisman of the Phrygian kings,
the local fame it enjoyed, as guaranteeing to them the rule
of Phrygia, might easily be exaggerated by distant rumour
into a report that the sceptre of Asia itself would fall to him
who should undo the wondrous knot.3
Unable to discriminate clearly between words and things,
the savage commonly fancies that the link between a name
and the person or thing denominated by it is not a mere
arbitrary and ideal association, but a real and substantial
bond which unites the two in such a way that, for example,
magic may be wrought on a man just as easily through his
name as through his hair, his nails, or any other material
1 A considerable body of evidence Curtius, iii. 1 ; Justin, xi. 7.
as to the custom of wearing rings and 3 Public talismans, on which the
the virtues attributed to them has been safety of the state was supposed to
collected by Mr. W. Jones in his work depend, were common in antiquity.
Finger -ring Lore (London, 1877). See Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p. 278 sqq.,
2 Arrian, Anabasis, ii. 3 ; Quintus and my note on Pausanias, viii. 47. 5.
404 PERSONAL NAMES CONCEALED chap.
part of his person.1 In fact, primitive man regards his name J ^^
as a vital portion of himself and takes care of it accordingly.
If we may judge from the evidence of language, this crude
conception of the relation of names to persons was widely
prevalent, if not universal, among the forefathers of the
Aryan race. For an analysis of the words for " name " in
the various languages of that great family of speech points
to the conclusion that " the Celts, and certain other widely
separated Aryans, unless we should rather say the wholej
Aryan family, believed at one time not only that the name
was a part of the man, but that it was that part of hirrj
which is termed the soul, the breath of life, or whatever you]
may choose to define it as being."2 However this may
have been among the primitive Aryans, it is quite certain
that many savages at the present day regard their names as
vital parts of themselves, and therefore take great pains to
conceal their real names, lest these should give to evil-
disposed persons a handle by which to injure their owners.
Thus, to begin with the savages who rank at the bottom
of the social scale, we are told that the secrecy with which
among the Australian aborigines personal names are often
kept from general knowledge " arises out of the belief that
an enemy who has your name, has something which he can
use magically to your detriment." 3 " An Australian black,"
says another writer, " is always very unwilling to tell his real
name, and there is no doubt that this reluctance is due
to the fear that through his name he may be injured by
sorcerers." 4 On Herbert River the wizards, in order to
practise their arts against some one, " need only to know
the name of the person in question, and for this reason they
rarely use their proper names in addressing or speaking of
each other, but simply their class names." 5 Another writer,
I1 On the primitive conception of the The Nineteenth Century, xxx. (July-
relation of names to persons and things, December 1891), p. 566 sq.
see E. B. Tylor, Early History of 'Man- 3 A. W. Howitt, "On Australian
kind z p. 123 sqq. ; R. Andree, Ethno- Medicine-men," Journal of the Anthro-
graphische Parallelen unci Vergleiche, pologieal Institute, xvi. (1887), p. 27,
p. 165 sqq. ; E. Clodd, To7n-tit-tot note.
(London, 1898), pp. 53 sqq., 79 sqq. 4 R. Brough Smyth, Aborigines of
In what follows I have used with ad- Victoria, i. 469, note,
vantage the works of all these writers. 5 C. Lumholtz, Among Cannibals
- ProfessorJ. Rhys, "Welsh Fairies," (London, 1889), p. 280.
ii PERSONAL NAMES CONCEALED 405
who knew the Australians well, observes that in many tribes
the belief prevails " that the life of an enemy may be taken
by the use of his name in incantations. The consequence of
this idea is, that in the tribes in which it obtains, the name
of the male is given up for ever at the time when he under-
goes the first of a series of ceremonies which end in confer-
ring the rights of manhood. In such tribes a man has no
name, and when a man desires to attract the attention of
any male of his tribe who is out of his boyhood, instead of
calling him by name, he addresses him as brother, nephew,
or cousin, as the case may be, or by the name of the class
to which he belongs. I used to notice, when I lived amongst
the Bangerang, that the names which the males bore in
infancy were soon almost forgotten by the tribe." 1 It may
be questioned, however, whether the writer of these words
was not deceived in thinking that among these tribes men
gave up their individual names on passing through the cere-
mony of initiation into manhood. It is more in harmony
with savage beliefs and practices to suppose either that the
old names were retained but dropped out of use in daily life,
or that new names were given at initiation and sedulously
concealed from fear of sorcery. A missionary who resided
among the aborigines at Lake Tyers, in Victoria, informs us
that " the blacks have great objections to speak of a person
by name. In speaking to each other they address the
person spoken to as brother, cousin, friend, or whatever
relation the person spoken to bears. Sometimes a black
bears a name which we would term merely a nickname, as
the left-handed, or the bad-handed, or the little man. They
would speak of a person by this name while living, but they
would never mention the proper name. I found great diffi-
culty in collecting the native names of the blacks here. I
found afterwards that they had given me wrong names ; and,
on asking the reason why, was informed they had two or
three names, but they never mentioned their right name for
fear any one got it, when they would die."2 Amongst the
tribes of Central Australia every man, woman, and child has,
1 E. M. Curr, The Australian Race, appears to mean that the natives feared
i- 46. they would die if any one, or at any
2 J. Buhner, in Brough Smyth's Abo- rate, an enemy, learned their real
rigines of Victoria, ii. 94. The writer names.
406 PERSONAL NAMES CONCEALED chap.
besides a personal name which is in common use, a secret or
sacred name which is bestowed by the older men upon him
or her soon after birth, and which is known to none but the
fully initiated members of the group. This secret name is
never mentioned except upon the most solemn occasions ; to
utter it in the hearing of women or of men of another group
would be a most serious breach of tribal custom, as serious as
the most flagrant case of sacrilege among ourselves. When
mentioned at all, the name is spoken only in a whisper, and
not until the most elaborate precautions have been taken
that it shall be heard by no one but members of the group.
" The native thinks that a stranger knowing his secret
name would have special power to work him ill by means
of magic." l
The same fear seems to have led to a custom of the same
sort amongst the ancient Egyptians, whose comparatively
high civilisation was strangely dashed and chequered with
relics of the lowest savagery. Every Egyptian received
two names, which were known respectively as the true
name and the good name, or the great name and the little
name ; and while the good or little name was made public,
the true or great name appears to have been carefully
concealed.2 Similarly in Abyssinia at the present day it is
customary to conceal the real name which a person receives
at baptism and to call him only by a sort of nickname which
his mother gives him on leaving the church. The reason
for this concealment is that a sorcerer cannot act upon a
person whose real name he does not know. But if he has
ascertained his victim's real name, the magician takes a par-
ticular kind of straw, and muttering something over it bends
it into a circle and places it under a stone. The person
aimed at is taken ill at the very moment of the bending of
the straw ; and if the straw snaps, he dies.3 The everyday
name of a Hindoo is quite distinct from his real name, which is
only used at formal ceremonies such as marriage.4 Amongst
1 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes 3 Mansfield Tarkyns, Life in Abys-
of Central Australia, p. 139; cp. ibid. sin ia (London, 1868), p. 301 sq.
P- 637.
2 E. Lefebure, ;' La Veitu et la Vie 4 D. C. J. Ibbetson, Outlines of
du Norn en Egypte," Milnsine, viii. Panjdb Ethnography (Calcutta, 1883),
(1897), col. 226 sq. p. 118.
n PERSONAL NAMES CONCEALED 407
the Kru negroes of West Africa a man's real name is always
concealed from all but his nearest relations ; to other people
he is known only under an assumed name.1 The Ewe-
speaking people of the Slave Coast " believe that there is a
real and material connection between a man and his name,
and that by means of the name injury may be done to the
man. An illustration of this has been given in the case of
the tree-stump that is beaten with a stone to compass the
death of an enemy ; for the name of that enemy is not pro-
nounced solely with the object of informing the animating
principle of the stump who it is whose death is desired, but
through a belief that, by pronouncing the name, the person-
ality of the man who bears it is in some way brought to
the stump." 2 The Wolofs of Senegambia are very much
annoyed if any one calls them in a loud voice, even by day ;
for they say that their name will be remembered by an evil
spirit and made use of by him to do them a mischief at
night.3 Similarly, the natives of Nias believe that harm may
be done to a person by the demons who hear his name pro-
nounced. Hence the names of infants, who are especially ex-
posed to the assaults of evil spirits, are never spoken ; and often
in haunted spots, such as the gloomy depths of the forest, the
banks of a river, or beside a bubbling spring, men will abstain
from calling each other by their names for a like reason.4
The Indians of Chiloe, a large island off the southern
coast of Chili, keep their names secret and do not like to
have them uttered aloud ; for they say that there are fairies
or imps on the mainland or neighbouring islands who, if
they knew folk's names, would do them an injury ; but so
long as they do not know the names, these mischievous
sprites are powerless.5 The Araucanians, who inhabit the
mainland of Chili to the north of Chiloe, will hardly ever
tell a stranger their names because they fear that he would
thereby acquire some supernatural power over themselves.
Asked his name by a stranger, who is ignorant of their
1 A. B. Ellis, The Tshi-speaking 4 E. Modigliani, Un Viaggio a Nias
Peoples of the Gold Coast, p. 109. (Milan, 1890), p. 465.
2 A. B. Ellis, The Ewe -speaking
Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 98. s This I learned from my wife, who
3 Berenger-Feraud, Les peuples de la spent some years in Chili and visited
Se'm'gambic (Paris, 1879), P- 28. the island of Chiloe.
408 PERSONAL NAMES CONCEALED chap.
superstitions, an Araucanian will answer, " I have none." 1
Names taken from plants, birds, or other natural objects are
bestowed on the Indians of Guiana at their birth by their
parents or the medicine-man, " but these names seem of
little use, in that owners have a very strong objection to
telling or using them, apparently on the ground that the
name is part of the man, and that he who knows the name
has part of the owner of that name in his power. To avoid
any danger of spreading knowledge of their names, one
Indian, therefore, generally addresses another only according
to the relationship of the caller and the called, as brother,
sister, father, mother, and so on ; or, when there is no
relationship, as boy, girl, companion, and so on. These
terms, therefore, practically form the names actually used
by Indians amongst themselves." 2 Amongst the Indians of
the Goajira peninsula in Colombia it is a punishable offence
to mention a man's name ; in aggravated cases heavy com-
pensation is demanded.3 The Indians of Darien never tell
their names, and when one of them is asked, " What is your
name ? " he answers, " I have none." 4 In North America
superstitions of the same sort are current. " Names bestowed
with ceremony in childhood," says Schoolcraft, " are deemed
sacred, and are seldom pronounced, out of respect, it would
seem, to the spirits under whose favour they are supposed to
have been selected. Children are usually called in the family
by some name which can be familiarly used." 5 The Navajoes
of New Mexico are most unwilling to reveal their own Indian
names or those of their friends ; they generally go by some
Mexican names which they have received from the whites.0
" No Apache will give his name to a stranger, fearing some
hidden power may thus be placed in the stranger's hand to
his detriment." 7 The Tonkawe Indians of Texas will give
1 E. R. Smith, The Araucanians Transactions of the Ethnological Society
(London, 1855), p. 222. of London, N.S., iv. (1866), p. 265.
2 E. F. im Thurn, Among the 5 H. R. Schoolcraft, The American
Indians of Guiana, p. 220. Indians, their history, condition, and
3 F. A. Simons, " An Exploration prospects (Buffalo, 1851), p. 213.
of the Goajira Peninsula, U.S. of 6 H. R. Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes,
Colombia," Proceedings of the Royal iv. 217.
Geographical Society, N.S., vii. (18S5), r J. G. Bourke, "Notes upon the
p. 79°- Religion of the Apache Indians," Folk-
4 Cullen, "The Darien Indians," lore, ii. (1891), p. 423.
II
PERSONAL NAMES CONCEALED
409
their children Comanche and English names in addition to
their native names, which they are unwilling to communicate
to others ; for they believe that when somebody calls a
person by his or her native name after death the spirit of
the deceased may hear it, and may be prompted to take
revenge on such as disturbed his rest ; whereas if the spirit
be called by a name drawn from another language, it will
pay no heed.1 Blackfoot Indians believe that they would
be unfortunate in all their undertakings if they were to speak
their names.2 When an Ojebway is asked his name, he will
look at some bystander and ask him to answer. " This
reluctance arises from an impression they receive when
young, that if they repeat their own names it will prevent
their growth, and they will be small in stature. On account
of this unwillingness to tell their names, many strangers have
fancied that they either have no names or have forgotten
them."3
In this last case no scruple seems to be felt about
communicating a man's name to strangers, and no ill effects
appear to be dreaded as a consequence of divulging it ; harm
is only done when a name is spoken by its owner. Why is
'this ? and why in particular should a man be thought to
stunt his growth by uttering his own name ? Wre may con-
jecture that to savages who act and think thus a person's
name only seems to be a part of himself when it is uttered
with his own breath ; uttered by the breath of others it has
no vital connection with him, and no harm can come to him
through it. Whereas, so these primitive philosophers may
/have argued, when a man lets his own name pass his lips,
he is parting with a living piece of himself, and if he persists
in so reckless a course he must certainly end by dissipating
his energy and shattering his constitution. Many a broken-
down debauchee, many a feeble frame wasted with consump-
tion, may have been pointed out by these simple moralists
1 A. S. Gatschet, The Harankawa
Indians, the Coast people of Texas {Ar-
chaeological and Ethnological Papers of
the Peabody Museum, Harvard Uni-
versity, vol. i. No. 2), p. 69.
2 G. B. Grinnell, Blackfoot Lodge
Tales, p. 194.
3 Peter Jones, History of the Ojebway
Indians, p. 162. Compare A. P.
Reid, " Religious Beliefs of the Ojibois
or Sauteux Indians," Journal of the
Anthropological Institute, iii. (1874),
p. 107.
410 RELUCTANCE TO UTTER chap.
to their awe-struck disciples as a fearful example of the fate
that must sooner or later overtake the profligate who indulges
immoderately in the seductive habit of mentioning his own
name.
However we may explain it, the fact is certain that
many a savage evinces the strongest reluctance to pronounce
his own name, while at the same time he makes no objection
at all to other people pronouncing it, and will even invite
them to do so for him in order to satisfy the curiosity of
an inquisitive stranger. Thus in some parts of Madagascar
it is fady or taboo for a person to tell his own name, but a
slave or attendant will answer for him.1 " Chatting with an
old Sakalava while the men were packing up, we happened
to ask him his name ; whereupon he politely requested us
to ask one of his servants standing by. On expressing our
astonishment that he should have forgotten this, he told us
that it was fady (tabooed) for one of his tribe to pronounce
his own name. We found this was perfectly true in that
district, but it is not the case with the Sakalava a few davs
farther down the river." 2 The same curious inconsistency,
as it may seem to us, is recorded of some tribes of American
Indians. Thus we are told that " the name of an American
Indian is a sacred thing, not to be divulged by the owner
himself without due consideration. One may ask a warrior
of any tribe to give his name, and the question will be met
with either a point-blank refusal or the more diplomatic
evasion that he cannot understand what is wanted of him.
The moment a friend approaches, the warrior first interro-
gated will whisper what is wanted, and the friend can tell
the name, receiving a reciprocation of the courtesy from
the other." This general statement applies, for example,
to the Indian tribes of British Columbia, as to whom it is
said1 that " one of their strangest prejudices, which appears
to pervade all tribes alike, is a dislike to telling their names
— thus you never get a man's right name from himself;
1 J. Sibree, The Great African (reprint of the first four numbers,
Island, p. 289. Antananarivo and London, 1885).
2 H. W. Grainge, "Journal of a 3 J. G. Bourke, "Medicine-men of
Visit to Mojanga on the North-west the Apaches," Ninth A nnnal Report of
Coast," Antananarivo Annual and the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington,
Madagascar Magazine, No. i. p. 25 1892), p. 461.
II
A MAN'S OWN NAME
411
but they will tell each other's names without hesitation." 1
Though it is considered very rude for a stranger to ask an
Apache his name, and the Apache will never mention it him-
self, he will allow his friend at his side to mention it for him.2
The Abipones of South America thought it a sin in a man to
utter his own name, but they would tell each other's names
freely ; when Father Dobrizhoffer asked a stranger Indian his
name, the man would nudge his neighbour with his elbow
as a sign that his companion should answer the question.3
In the whole of the East Indian Archipelago the etiquette
is the same. As a general rule no one will utter his own
ame. To inquire, " What is your name ? " is a very in-
dicate question in native society. When in the course of
dministrative or judicial business a native is asked his name,
nstead of replying he will look at his comrade to indicate
that he is to answer for him, or he will say straight out,
'Ask him." The superstition is current all over the East
Indies without exception,4 and it is found also among the
Motu and Motumotu tribes of New Guinea.5 Among many
tribes of South Africa men and women never mention their
names if they can get any one else to do it for them, but
they do not absolutely refuse when it cannot be avoided.0
1 R. C. Mayne, Four Years in
British Columbia and Vancouver
Island (London, 1862), p. 278 sq.
2 J. G. Bourke, On the Border with
Crook , p. 131 sq.
3 Dobrizhoffer, Historia de Al>i-
ponibus (Vienna, 1784), ii. 498.
4 G. A. Wilken, Handleidingvoor de
vergelijkende Volkenkunde van Neder-
landsch-Indic, p. 221. The custom is
reported for the British settlements in
the Straits of Malacca by Newbold
( Political and Statistical Account of the
British Settlements in the Straits of
Malacca (London, 1839), ii. 176);
for Sumatra in general by Marsden
{History of Sumatra, p. 286 sq.) ;
for the Battas by Baron van Hoevell
(" lets over 't oorlogvoeren der Batta's,"
Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indie,
N.S., vii. (1878), p. 436, note); for the
Dyaks by C. Hupe ("Korte Verb an -
deling over de Godsdienst, Zeden, enz.
der Dajakkers," Tijdschrift voor Nor-
lands Indie, 1846, dl. iii. p. 250) ; for
the island of Sumba by S. Roos (" Bij-
drage tot de Kennis van Taal, Land en
Volk op het Eiland Soemba," p. 70,
Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch
Genootschap van Knnsten en VVeten-
schappen, xxxvi. ) ; and for Bolang Mon-
gondo, in the west of Celebes, by N. P.
Wilken and J. A. Schwarz (" Allerlei
over het land en volk van Bolaang
Mongondou," Mededeelingen van wege
het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap,
xi. (1867), p. 356).
5 J. Chalmers, Pioneering in New
Guinea, p. 187. If a Motumotu man
is hard pressed for his name and there
is nobody near to help him, he will at
last in a very stupid way mention it
himself.
8 j.Macdonald, "Manners, Customs,
Superstitions, and Religions of South
v\frican Tribes," Journal of the An-
thropological Institute, xx. (1 89 1), p.
I3I-
412 RELUCTANCE TO UTTER chap.
No Warua will tell his name, but he does not object to
being addressed by it.1
When it is deemed necessary that a man's real name
should be kept secret, it is often customary, as we have seen,
to call him by a surname or nickname. As distinguished
from the real or primary names, these secondary names are
apparently held to be no part of the man himself, so that
they may be freely used and divulged to everybody without
endangering his safety thereby. Sometimes in order to
avoid the use of his own name a man will be called after
his child. Thus we are informed that " the Gippsland
blacks objected strongly to let any one outside the tribe
know their names, lest their enemies, learning them, should
make them vehicles of incantation, and so charm their lives
away. As children were not thought to have enemies, they
used to speak of a man as ' the father, uncle, or cousin of
So-and-so,' naming a child ; but on all occasions abstained from
mentioning the name of a grown-up person."2 The Alfoors
of Poso, in Celebes, will not pronounce their own names.
Among them, accordingly, if you wish to ascertain a person's
name, you ought not to ask the man himself, but should inquire
of others. But if this is impossible, for example, when there
is no one else near, you should ask him his child's name, and
then address him as the " Father of So-and-so." Nay, these
Alfoors are shy of uttering the names even of children ; so
when a boy or girl has a nephew or niece, he or she is addressed
as " Uncle of So-and-so," or " Aunt of So-and-so."3 These j
facts go to show that the widespread custom of naming parents, |
and especially fathers, after their children, originates merely
in a reluctance to utter the real names of persons addressed
or directly referred to. That reluctance is probably based
in part on a fear of attracting the notice of evil spirits.4
It might naturally be expected that the reserve so
1 Cameron, Across Africa (London, gaandehet geestelijk enmaatschnppelijk
1877), ii. 61. leven van den Poso-Alfoer," Mededee-
2 E. M. Curr, The Australian Race, lingeti van ivege het Nederlandsche Zen-
iii. 545. Similarly among the Daco- delinggenootschafi,x\.(l8g6), p. 2J3 sag.
tas "there is no secrecy in children's 4 For evidence of the custom in Aus-
names, but when they grow up there is tralia, see E. J. Eyre, Jotimals of
a secrecy in men's names " (School- Expeditions of Discovery into Central
craft, Indian Tribes, iii. 240). Australia (London, 1845), ii- 325 : in
3 A. C. Kruijt, " Een en ander aan- Sumatra, see Marsden, History of
i
II
NAMES OF RE LA TIONS
413
commonly maintained with regard to personal names would
be dropped or at least relaxed among relations and friends.
But the reverse of this is often the case. It is precisely the
persons most intimately connected by blood and especially
by marriage to whom the rule applies with the greatest
stringency. Such people are often forbidden, not only to
pronounce each other's names, but even to utter ordinary
words which resemble or have a single syllable in common with
these names. The persons who are thus mutually debarred
from mentioning each other's names are especially husbands
and wives, a man and his wife's parents, and a woman and
her husband's father. For example, among the Caffres of
South Africa a woman may not publicly pronounce the
birth-name of her husband or of any of his brothers, nor
may she use the interdicted word in its ordinary sense. If
her husband, for instance, be called u-Mpaka, from impaka,
a small feline animal, she must speak of that beast by some
other name.1 Further, a Caffre wife is forbidden to pro-
Sumatra, p. 286 : among the Battas,
see Baron van Hoevell, "lets over 't
oorlogvoeren der Batta's," Tijdschrift
voor Nederlandsch Indie, N.S., vii.
(1878), p. 436, note : among the Dyaks,
see C. Hupe, " Korte Verhandeling
over de Godsdienst, Zeden, enz. tier
Dajakkers," Tijdschrift voor Neerlands
Indie, 1846, dl. iii. p. 249 ; H. Low,
Sarawak, p. 197 : among the Kayans
of Borneo, see W. H. Furness, Folk-
lore in Borneo (Wallingford, Pennsyl-
vania, 1899, privately printed), p. 26 :
among the Kasias of Northern India, see
Yule, in Journal of the Anthropological
Institute, ix. (1SS0), p. 298: among the
Caffres and Bechuanas of South Africa,
see J. Shooter, The Kafirs of Natal
(London, 1857), p. 220 sq.; D. Leslie,
Among the Zulus and Amatongas2 (Edin-
burgh, 1875), p. 171.SY/. ; Theal, Kaffir
Folk-lore, p. 225 : among the Mayas of
Guatemala, see Bancroft, Native Races
cfthe Pacific States, ii. 680 : and among
the Tinneh and occasionally the Thlin-
keet Indians of North-West America,
see E. Petitot, Monographic des Deni-
Dindjii (Paris, 1876), p. 61 ; H. J.
Holmberg, " Ethnographische Skizzen
i'tber die Volker des russischen Amerika,
Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae,
iv. (1856), p. 319. G. A. Wilken held
that the custom springs from a desire
on the part of the father to assert his
paternity, and Prof. E. B. Tylor seems
disposed to take the same view. See
G. A. Wilken, Handleiding voor de ver-
gelijkende Volkenkunde van Neder-
landsch-Indie, p. 216 sqq. (where more
evidence of the prevalence of the custom
in the East Indies is given); E. B. Tylor,
in fount. Anthrop. Institute, xviii.
(1889), p. 248 sqq. (who refers to a paper
by Wilken in De Indische Gids for 1880,
which I have not seen). But this ex-
planation fails to account not merely
for the custom of naming the mother
after her child, but also for the parallel
custom in Poso of naming young chil-
dren after their nephews and nieces.
Wilken's explanation is rejected by Mr.
A. C. Kruijt (I.e. ) in favour of the one
indicated in the text ; but that explana-
tion itself hardly covers the many cases
discussed above, where, though a man
will not mention his own name, he
does not object to other people doing
so.
1 J. Shooter, The Kafirs of Natal,
p. 221.
4U
RELUCTANCE TO UTTER
C1IA1*.
nouncc even mentally the names of her father-in-law and of
all her husband's male relations in the ascending line ; and
whenever the emphatic syllable of any of their names occurs
in another word, she must avoid it by substituting either an
entirely new word, or, at least, another syllable in its place.
Hence this custom has given rise to an almost distinct
language among the women, which the Caffres call Ukuteta
Kwabafazi or " women's speech." 1 The interpretation of
this " women's speech " is naturally very difficult, " for no
definite rules can be given for the formation of these substi-
tuted words, nor is it possible to form a dictionary of them,
their number being so great — since there may be many women,
even in the same tribe, who would be no more at liberty to
use the substitutes employed by some others, than they are
to use the original words themselves." 2 A Caffre man, on his
side, may not mention the name of his mother-in-law, nor may
she pronounce his ; but he is free to utter words in which
the emphatic syllable of her name occurs.3 In Northern
Nyasaland no woman will speak the name of her husband
or even use a word that may be synonymous with it. If
she were to call him by his proper name, she believes it
would be unlucky and would affect her powers of concep-
tion. In like manner women abstain, for superstitious
reasons, from using the common names of articles of food,
which they designate by terms peculiar to themselves.4
Among the Barea and Bogos of Eastern Africa a woman
never mentions her husband's name ; a Bogo wife would
1 Maclean, Competidium of Kafir
Laws and Customs (Cape Town, 1866),
p. 92 si/. ; D. Leslie, Among the Zulus
and Amatongas,2 pp. 141 sq., 172 ;
Kranz, Natur- and Kulturlcben der
Zulus (Wiesbaden, 1880), p. 114 sq. ;
Theal, Kaffir Folk-lore'1 (London, 1886),
p. 214.
2 Rev. Francis Fleming, Kaffraria
and its Inhabitants (London, 1S53),
p. 97 ; id., Southern Africa (London,
1856), p. 238. This writer states that
the women are forbidden to pronounce
"any word which may happen to
contain a sound similar to any one in
the names of their nearest male rela-
tives." But perhaps the restriction is
limited to the names of men with whom
the woman is connected by marriage,
and does not apply to the names of
her blood relations.
■"' Maclean, op. cit. p. 93 ; D.
Leslie, Among the Zulus and Ama-
tougas,'2 pp. 46, 102, 172. The exten-
sive system of taboos on personal
names among the Caffres is known as
Ukuhlonipa, or simply hlonipa. The
fullest account of it with which I am
acquainted is given by Leslie, op. cit.
pp. 141 sq., 172-180.
4 Sir H. II. Johnston, British
Central Africa (London, 1897), p.
452.
n NAMES OF RELATIONS 415
rather be unfaithful to him than commit the monstrous sin
of allowing his name to pass her lips.1 A Kirghiz woman
dares not pronounce the names of the older relations of her
husband, nor even use words which resemble them in sound.
For example, if one of these relations is called Shepherd,
she may not speak of sheep, but must call them " the bleat-
ing ones" ; if his name is Lamb, she must refer to lambs as
" the young of the bleating ones."2 Among the Ojebways
husbands and wives never mention each other's names ; 3
among the Omahas a man and his father-in-law and mother-
in-law will on no account utter each other's names in com-
pany.4 A Dacota "is not allowed to address or to look
towards his wife's mother, especially, and the woman is shut
off from familiar intercourse with her husband's father and
others, and etiquette prohibits them from speaking the names
of their relatives by marriage." " None of their customs,"
adds the same writer, " is more tenacious of life than this ;
and no family law is more binding."5
Among the Dyaks a child never pronounces the names of
his parents, and is angry if any one else does so in his presence.
A husband never calls his wife by her name, and she never
calls him by his. If they have children, they name each other
after them, "Father of So-and-so" and "Mother of So-and-so";
if they have no children they use the pronouns "he" and "she,"
or an expression such as " he or she whom I love " ; and in
general members of a Dyak family do not mention each other's
names.0 Moreover, when the personal names happen also, as
they often do, to be names of common objects, the Dyak is
debarred from designating these objects by their ordinary
names. For instance, if a man or one of his family is called
Bintang, which means " star," he must not call a star a star
(bintang); he must call it a pariama. If he or a member of
1 W. Munzinger, Ostafrikanische 4 E. James, Expedition from Pitts-
Studien (Schaffhausen, 1864), p. 526; burgh to the Rocky Mountains (London,
id., Sitten und Recht der Bogos (Win- 1823), i. 232.
terthur, 1859), p. 95. ^ S. R. Riggs, Dakota Grammar,
2 W. Radloff, Probe,, der Volks- T'XtS> and Eih>^grafhy (Washington,
litleratur der Tiirkischen Stamme Slid- .. J/' P' '*'
SibiHens, iii. 13, note 3. C; *IuPe> " korte Verhandeling
over de Godsdienst, Zeden, enz. der
3 Peter Jones, History of the Ojeb- Dajakkers," Tijdschrift voor Neerlands
way Indians, p. 162. Indie, 1846, dl. iii. p. 249 sq.
416 RELUCTANCE TO UTTER chap.
his domestic circle bears the name of Bulan, which means
" moon," he may not speak of the moon as the moon
{bulan) ; he must call it pcnala. Hence it comes about that
in the Dyak language there are two sets of distinct names
for many objects.1 Among the Alfoors of Poso, in Central
Celebes, you may not pronounce the names of your father,
mother, grandparents, and other near relations. But the
strictest taboo is on the names of parents-in-law. A son-in-
law and a daughter-in-law may not only never mention the
names of their parents-in-law, but if the names happen to be
ordinary words of the language, they may never allow the
words in their common significance to pass their lips. For
example, if my father is called Njara (" horse "), I may
not speak of him by that name ; but in speaking of the
animal I am free to use the word horse {njara). But if my
father-in-law is called Njara, the case is different, for then
not only may I not refer to him by his name, but I may not
even call a horse a horse ; in speaking of the animal I must
use some other word. The missionary who reports the
custom is acquainted with a man whose mother-in-law rejoices
in the name of Ringgi (" rixdollar "). When this man has
occasion to refer to real rixdollars, he alludes to them deli-
cately as " large guilders " {roepia bose). Another man may
not use the ordinary word for water {oewe) ; in speaking of
water he employs a word {ozvai) taken from a different
dialect. Indeed, among these Alfoors it is the common
practice in such cases to replace the forbidden word by a
kindred word of the same significance borrowed from another
dialect. In this way many fresh terms or new forms of an
old word pass into general circulation.2 Among the Alfoors
of Minahassa, in Northern Celebes, the custom is carried still
further so as to forbid the use even of words which merely
resemble the personal names in sound. It is especially the
name of a father-in-law which is thus laid under an interdict.
1 " De Dajaks op Borneo," Mededee- 2 A. C. Kruijt, " Een en ander aan-
lingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zen- gaande hetgeestelijk en maatschappelijk
delinggenootschap, xiii. (1S69), p. 78; leven van den Poso-Alfoerf" Mededeelm-
G. A. Wilkeri, Handleiding voor de gen van wege het Nederlandsche Zcnde-
vergelijkende Volkenkunde van Neder- linggenootschap, xl. (1896), p. 273 sq.
landsch-Indie, p. 599. The word for taboo among these people
is kapali.
ii NAMES OF RELATIONS 417
If he, for example, is called Kalala, his son-in-law may not
speak of a horse by its common name kawalo ; he must call
it a " riding-beast " {sasakajan)} So among the Alfoors
of the island of Buro it is taboo to mention the names of
parents and parents-in-law, or even to speak of common
objects by words which resemble these names in sound.
Thus, if your mother-in-law is called Dalu, which means
" betel," you may not ask for betel by its ordinary name, you
must ask for " red mouth " {niue mihd) ; if you want betel-
leaf, you may not say betel-leaf {dalu 'mun), you must
say karon fenna. In the same island it is also taboo to
mention the name of an elder brother in his presence.2 In
Bolang Mongondo, a district in the west of Celebes, the un-
mentionable names are those of parents, parents-in-law, uncles
and aunts.3 Among the Alfoors of Halmahera a son-in-
law may never use his father-in-law's name in speaking to
him ; he must simply address him as " Father-in-law." 4 In
Sunda it is thought that a particular crop would be spoilt if
a man were to mention the names of his father and mother/
In the Banks Islands, Melanesia, the taboos laid on the
names of persons connected by marriage are very strict.
A man will not mention the name of his father-in-law,
much less the name of his mother-in-law, nor may he name
his wife's brother ; but he may name his wife's sister, she is
nothing to him. A woman may not name her father-in-law,
nor on any account her son-in-law. Two people whose
children have intermarried are also debarred from mention-
ing each other's names. And not only are all these persons
1 G. A. Wilken, op. cit. p. 599 sq. 4 C. F. H. Campen, " De gods-
2 G. A. Wilken, " Bijdrage tot de dienstbegrippen der Halmaherasche Al-
Kennis der Alfoeren van het Eiland foeren," Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-
Boeroe," p. 26 (Verhandelingen van Land- en Volkenkunde, xxvii. (1882),
het Balaviaasch Genootschap van Kun- p. 450.
sten en Wetenschappen, xxxvi.). The 5 K. F. Holle, "Snippers van den
words for taboo among these Alfoors Regent van Galoeh," Tijdschrift voor
are poto and koin; poto applies to Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde,
actions, koin to things and places. xxvii. (1882), p. 101 sq. The precise
The literal meaning of poto is "warm," consequence supposed to follow is that
"hot" (Wilken, op. cit. p. 25). the oebi(?) plantations would have no
3 N. P. Wilken and J. A. Schwarz, bulbs (geen knollen). The names of
"Allerlei over het Land en Volk van several animals are also tabooed in
Bolaang Mongondou," Mededeelingen Sunda. See Note A at the end of
van wege het Nederlandsche Zendeling- this volume, "Taboos on Common
genootschap, xi. (1867), P- 356. Words."
VOL. I 2 E
418 RELUCTANCE TO UTTER chap.
forbidden to utter each other's names ; they may not even
pronounce ordinary words which chance to be either identical
with these names or to have any syllables in common with
them. " A man on one occasion spoke to me of his house as
a shed, and when that was not understood, went and touched
it with his hand to show what he meant ; a difficulty being
still made, he looked round to be sure that no one was near
and whispered, not the name of his son's wife, but the
respectful substitute for her name, amen Mulegona, she who
was with his son, and whose name was Tuwarina, Hind-
house." Again, we hear of a native of these islands who
might not use the common words for " pig " and " to die,"
because these words occurred in the polysyllabic name of his
son-in-law; and we are told of another unfortunate who
might not pronounce the everyday words for " hand " and
" hot " on account of his wife's brother's name, and who was
even debarred from mentioning the number "one," because
the word for " one " formed part of the name of his wife's
cousin.1
It might be expected that similar taboos on the names
of relations and on words resembling them would commonly
occur among the aborigines of Australia, and that some light
might be thrown on their origin and meaning by the primi-
tive modes of thought and forms of society prevalent among
these savages. Yet this expectation can hardly be said to
be fulfilled ; for the evidence of the observance of such
customs in Australia is scanty and hardly of a nature to
explain their origin. We are told that there are instances
" in which the names of natives are never allowed to be
spoken, as those of a father or mother-in-law, of a son-in-law,
and some cases arising from a connection with each other's
wives." 2 Among some Victorian tribes, a man never at
any time mentioned the name of his mother-in-law, and
from the time of his betrothal to his death neither she nor
her sisters might ever look at or speak to him. He might
not go within fifty yards of their habitation, and when he
met them on a path they immediately left it, clapped
their hands, and covering up their heads with their rugs,
1 R. H. Codrington, The Melan- 2 E. J. Eyre, Journals of Expedi-
esians, p. 43 sq. tions, ii. 339.
ii NAMES OF RELATIONS 419
walked in a stooping posture and spoke in whispers until he
had gone by. They might not talk with him, and when he
and they spoke to other people in each other's presence they
used a special form of speech which went by the name of
" turn tongue." This was not done with any intention of
concealing their meaning, for " turn tongue " was understood
by everybody.1 A writer, who enjoyed unusually favourable
opportunities of learning the language and customs of the
Victorian aborigines, informs us that, " A stupid custom
existed among them, which they called knal-oyne. Whenever
a female child was promised in marriage to any man, from
that very hour neither he nor the child's mother were per-
mitted to look upon or hear each other speak or hear their
names mentioned by others ; for, if they did, they would
immediately grow prematurely old and die." In the
Booandik tribe of South Australia persons connected by
marriage, except husbands and wives, spoke to each other in
a low whining voice and employed words different from those
in common use.3 Another writer, speaking of the same tribe,
says : " Mothers-in-law and sons-in-law studiously avoid each
other. A father-in-law converses with his son-in-law in a
low tone of voice, and in a phraseology differing somewhat
from the ordinary one." 4
It will perhaps occur to the reader that customs of this
latter sort may possibly have originated in the intermarriage
of tribes speaking different languages ; and there are some
Australian facts which seem at first sight to favour this
supposition. Thus with regard to the natives of South
Australia we are told that " the principal mark of distinction
between the tribes is difference of language or dialect ;
where the tribes intermix greatly no inconvenience is
experienced on this account, as every person understands, in
addition to his own dialect, that of the neighbouring tribe ;
the consequence is that two persons commonly converse in
1 J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines, gnatnan tirambuul.
p. 29. Specimens of this peculiar - Joseph Parker, in Brough Smyth's
form of speech are given by Mr. Daw- Aborigines of Victoria, ii. 156.
son. For example, " It will be very 3 Mrs. James Smith, The Booandik
warm by and by" was expressed in Tribe, p. 5.
the ordinary language Baawan kullmui ; 4 D. Stewart, in E. M. Curr's
in "turn tongue" it was Gnullewa Australian Race, iii. 461.
4^o INTERMIXTURE OF LANGUAGES chap.
two languages, just as an Englishman and German would
hold a conversation, each person speaking his own language,
but understanding that of the other as well as his own. This
peculiarity will often occur in one family through inter-
marriages, neither party ever thinking of changing his or her
dialect for that of the other. Children do not always adopt
the language of the mother, but that of the tribe among
whom they live." 1 Among some tribes of Western Victoria
a man was actually forbidden to marry a wife who spoke
the same dialect as himself ; and during the preliminary
visit, which each paid to the tribe of the other, neither was
permitted to speak the language of the tribe whom he or
she was visiting. The children spoke the language of their
father and might never mix it with any other. To her
children the mother spoke in their father's language, but to
her husband she spoke in her own, and he answered her in
his ; " so that all conversation is carried on between husband
and wife in the same way as between an Englishman and
a Frenchwoman, each speaking his or her own language.
iThis very remarkable law explains the preservation of so
[many distinct dialects within so limited a space, even where
I there are no physical obstacles to ready and frequent com-
Imunication between the tribes."2 So amongst the Sakais,
an aboriginal race of the Malay Peninsula, a man goes to a
considerable distance for a wife, generally to a tribe who
speak quite a different dialect.3 It is well known that the
Carib women spoke a language which differed in some respects
from that of the men, and the explanation generally given
of the difference is that the women preserved the language
of a race of whom the men had been exterminated and the
women married by the Caribs. This explanation is not, as
some seem to suppose, a mere hypothesis of the learned,
devised to clear up a curious discrepancy ; it was a tradition
current among the Caribs themselves in the seventeenth
1 C. W. Schiirmann, in Native she happened to be of another tribe
Tribes of South Australia, p. 249. (Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and
13 J.Dawson, Australian Aborigines, Kurnai, p. 276).
pp. 27, 30 sq., 40. So among the
Gowmditch-mara tribe of Western 3 A. Hale, "On the Sakais, "Journal
Victoria the child spoke his father's of the Anthropological Institute, xv.
language, and not his mother's, when (1886), p. 291.
ii THE DEAD NOT NAMED 421
century,1 and as such it deserves serious attention. But
there are other facts which seem to point to a different
explanation.'2 However this may be, a little reflection will
probably convince us that a mere intermixture of races
speaking different tongues could scarcely account for the
phenomena of language under consideration. For the reluc-
tance to mention the names or even syllables of the names
of persons connected with the speaker by marriage can
hardly be separated from the reluctance evinced by so many
people to utter their own names or the names of the dead
or of chiefs and kings ; and if the reticence as to these latter
names springs mainly from superstition, we may infer that
the reticence as to the former has no better foundation.
That the savage's unwillingness to mention his own name is
based, at least in part, on a superstitious fear of the ill use
that might be made of it by his foes, whether human or
spiritual, has already been shown. It remains to examine
the similar usage in regard to the names of the dead and of
royal personages.
The custom of abstaining from all mention of the names
of the dead was observed in antiquity by the Albanians of
the Caucasus,3 and at the present day it is in full force
among many savage tribes. Thus we are told that one of
the customs most rigidly observed and enforced amongst the
Australian aborigines is never to mention the name of a
deceased person, whether male or female ; to name aloud
one who has departed this life would be a gross violation of
their most sacred prejudices, and they carefully abstain from
it.4 The chief motive for this abstinence appears to be a
1 De Rochefort, Histoire Naturelle I'Amerique (Paris, 1654), p. 462 ;
et Morale des lies Antilles de PAme- Labat, Nouveau Voyage aux Isles de
rique'1 (Rotterdam, 1665), p. 349^.; I'Amerique (Paris, 1 7 13), vi. 127
De la Borde, " Relation de l'origine, sq. ; J. N. Rat, "The Carib language,"
etc., des Caraibs sauvages des Isles Journal of the Anthropological Institute,
Antilles de I'Amerique," pp. 4, 39 xxvii. (1898), p. 311 sq.
(Recueil de divers Voyages fails en 2 See C. Sapper, " Mittelamerican-
Afrique et en Amerique, qui u'ont point ische Caraiben," Internationales Archiv
este encore publiez, Paris, 1684); filr Ethnographie, x. (1897), p. 56 sqq.;
Lafitau, Mceurs des Sauvages Ameri- and my article, "A suggestion as to the
quoins, i. 55. On the language of origin of gender in language," Fort-
the Carib women, see also Jean Bap- nightly Review, January 1900.
tiste du Tertre, Histoire generate des 3 Strabo, xi. 4. 8.
Isles de S. Christophe, de la Guade- 4 G. Grey, Journals of Two Expedi-
loitpe, dc la Martinique et autres dans . lions of Discovery, ii. 232, 257.
422 THE DEAD NOT NAMED chap.
fear of evoking the ghost, although the natural unwillingness
to revive past sorrows undoubtedly operates also to draw the
veil of oblivion over the names of the dead.1 Once Mr.
Oldfield so terrified a native by shouting out the name of a
deceased person, that the man fairly took to his heels and
did not venture to show himself again for several days. At
their next meeting he bitterly reproached Mr. Oldfield for
his indiscretion ; " nor could I," adds Mr. Oldfield, " induce
him by any means to utter the awful sound of a dead man's
name, for by so doing he would have placed himself in the
power of the malign spirits." 2 On another occasion a
Watchandie woman having mentioned the name of a certain
man, was informed that he had long been dead. At that she
became greatly excited and spat thrice to counteract the
evil effect of having taken a dead man's name into her lips.
This custom of spitting thrice, as Mr. Oldfield afterwards
learned, was the regular charm whereby the natives freed
themselves from the power of the dangerous spirits whom
they had provoked by such a rash act.3 Among the
aborigines of Victoria the dead were very rarely spoken of,
and then never by their names ; they were referred to in a
subdued voice as " the lost one " or " the poor fellow that is
no more." To speak of them by name would, it was sup-
posed, excite the malignity of Couit-gil, the spirit of the
departed, which hovers on earth for a time before it departs
for ever towards the setting sun.4 Once when a Kurnai
The writer is here speaking especially Cannibals (London, 1889), p. 279 ;
of Western Australia, but his statement Report on the Work of the Horn Scien-
applies, with certain restrictions which tific Expedition to Central Australia
will be mentioned presently, to all (London and Melbourne, 1896), pp.
parts of the continent. For evidence 137, 168. More evidence is adduced
see D. Collins, Account of the Eng- below.
lish Colony in New South Wales l On this latter head, see especially
(London, 1804), p. 390; S. Gason, in the remarks of Mr. A. W. Howitt, in
Native Tribes of South Australia, p. Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 249. Com-
275 ; Brough Smyth, Aborigines of pare also C. W. Schurmann, in Native
Vietoria, i. 120, ii. 297 ; A. L. P. Tribes of South Australia, p. 247 ;
Cameron, in Journal of the Anthropo- F. Bonney, in Journal of the Anthropo-
logical Institute, xiv. (18S5), p. 363 ; logical Institute, xiii. (1884), p. 127.
Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and - A. Oldfield, "The Aborigines of
Kurnai, p. 284 ; E. M. Curr, The Australia," Transactions of the Ethno-
Australian Race, i. 88, 338, ii. 195, logical Society of London, N.S., iii.
iii. 22, 29, 139, 166, 596; J. D. Lang, (1865), p. 238.
Queensland (London, 1861), pp. 367, 3 A. Oldfield, op. cit. p. 240.
387, 3S8 ; C. Lumholtz, Among 4 W. Stranbridge, "On the Abori-
ii THE DEAD NOT NAMED 423
man was spoken to about a dead friend, soon after the
decease, he looked round uneasily and said, " Do not do
that, he might hear you and kill me ! " 1 Of the tribes
on the Lower Murray River we are told that when a person
dies " they carefully avoid mentioning his name ; but if
compelled to do so, they pronounce it in a very low whisper,
so faint that they imagine the spirit cannot hear their voice." L'
Amongst the tribes of Central Australia no one may utter
the name of the deceased during the period of mourning,
unless it is absolutely necessary to do so, and then it is only
done in a whisper for fear of disturbing and annoying the
man's spirit which is walking about in ghostly form. If the
ghost hears his name mentioned he concludes that his kins-
folk are not mourning for him properly ; if their grief were
genuine they could not bear to bandy his name about.
Touched to the quick by their hard-hearted indifference, the
indignant ghost will come and trouble them in dreams.3
The same reluctance to utter the names of the dead
appears to prevail among all the Indian tribes of America
from Hudson's Bay Territory to Patagonia. Among the
Iroquois, for example, the name of the deceased was never
mentioned after the period of mourning had expired.4 The
same rule was rigidly observed by the Indians of California
and Oregon ; its transgression might be punished with a heavy
fine or even with death.' Thus among the Karok of Cali-
fornia we are told that " the highest crime one can commit
is the pet-dti-e-ri, the mere mention of the dead relative's
name. It is a deadly insult to the survivors, and can be
atoned for only by the same amount of blood-money paid
for wilful murder. In default of that they will have the
villain's blood."0 Amongst the Wintun, also of California,
if some one in a group of merry talkers inadvertently men-
gines of Victoria," Transactions of the 4 L. H. Morgan, League of the Iro-
Ethnological Society of London, N.S., i. quois (Rochester, U.S., 185 1), p. 175.
(1861), p. 299. f> A. S. Gatschett, The Klamath
1 A. W. Howitt, " On some Austra- Indians of South - western Oregon
lian Beliefs," Journal of the Ant hropo- (Washington, 1890), {Contributions to
logical Institute, xiii. (1884), p. 191. North American Ethnology, vol. ii. pt.
2 G. F. Angas, Savage Life and I), p. xli. ; Chase, quoted by Bancroft,
Scenes in Australia and Neto Zealand, Native Races of the Pacific States, i.
i. 94. 357, note 76.
I 3 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes G S. Powers, Tribes of California,
of Central Australia, p. 49S. p. 33, compare p. 68.
424 THE DEAD NOT NAMED chap.
tions the name of a deceased person, "straightway there falls
upon all an awful silence. No words can describe the
shuddering and heart-sickening terror which seizes upon them
at the utterance of that fearful word." l Among the Goajiros
of Colombia to mention the dead before his kinsmen is a
dreadful offence, which is often punished with death ; for if
it happen on the ranclio of the deceased, in presence of his
nephew or uncle, they will assuredly kill the offender on the
spot if they can. But if he escapes, the penalty resolves
itself into a heavy fine, usually of two or more oxen." So
among the Abipones of Paraguay to mention the departed
by name was a serious crime, which often led to blows and
bloodshed. When it was needful to refer to such an one,
it was done by means of a general phrase such as " he who
is no more," eked out with particulars which served to
identify the person meant.3
A similar reluctance to mention the names of the dead
is reported of peoples so widely separated from each other
as the Samoyeds of Siberia and the Todas of Southern
India, the Mongols of Tartary and the Tuaregs of the
Sahara, the Ainos of Japan and the Wakamba of Central
Africa, and the inhabitants of the Nicobar Islands, of Borneo,
and Tasmania.4 In all cases, even where it is not expressly
1 S. Powers, op. cit. p. 240. tory," Journal of the Royal Geographi-
2 F. A. Simons, "An Exploration cal Society, xxxii. (1862), p. 255; A.
of the Goajira Peninsula, U.S. of Pinart, " Les Indiens de l'Etat de
Colombia," Proceedings of the Royal Panama," Revue d' Ethnographic', vi.
Geographical Society, vii. (1885), p. (1887), p. 56; Musters, in Journal of
791. the Royal Geographical Society, xli.
3 Dobrizhoffer, Historia de Abiponi- (1871), p. 68 (as to Patagonia). More
bus, ii. 301, 498. For more evidence is adduced below,
evidence of the observance of this 4 See Pallas, Reise durch verschie-
taboo among the American Indians, dene Provinzen des russischen Reichs,
see W. Colquhoun Grant, "Description iii. 76 (Samoyeds); W. E. Marshall,
of Vancouver's Island, ''''Journal of the Travels amongst the Todas, p. 177;
Royal Geographical Society, xxvii. Plan de Carpin (de Piano Carpini),
(1857), p. 303 (as to Vancouver Island) ; Relatio?i des Mongols ou Tartares, ed.
Capt. Wilson, " Report on the Indian D'Avezac, cap. iii. § iii. ; H. Duveyrier,
Tribes," Transactionsof the Ethnological Exploration du Sahara, les Touareg du
Society of Loudon, ~R.?>. iv. (1866), p. 2S6 Nord (Paris, 1864), p. 415; Lieut,
(as to Vancouver Island and neighbour- S- C. Holland, "The Ainos, ''Journal
hood) ; A. Ross, Adventures on the of the Anthropological Institute, iii.
Oregon or Columbia River, p. 322; (1874), p. 238; J. M. Hildebrandt,
H. R. Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, iv. " Ethnographische Notizen iiber Wa-
226 (as to the Bonaks of California) ; kamba und ihre Nacbarn," Zeitschrift
Ch. N. Bell, "The Mosquito Terri- fur Ethnologie, x. (1878), p. 405; N.
ii THE DEAD NOT NAMED 425
stated, the fundamental reason for this avoidance is probably
the fear of the ghost. That this is the real motive with the
(Tuaregs of the Sahara we are positively informed. They
dread the return of the dead man's spirit, and do all they
can to avoid it by shifting their camp after a death, ceasing
for ever to pronounce the name of the departed, and
eschewing everything that might be regarded as an evocation
or recall of his soul. Hence they do not, like the Arabs,
designate individuals by adding to their personal names the
names of their fathers ; they never speak of So-and-so, son
of So-and-so ; they give to every man a name which will
live and die with him.1 So among some of the Victorian
tribes in Australia personal names were rarely perpetuated,
because the natives believed that any one who adopted the
name of a deceased person would not live long ; 2 probably
his ghostly namesake was supposed to come and fetch him
away to the spirit-land. Among the Klallam Indians of
Washington Territory no person may bear the name of his
deceased father, grandfather, or any other direct ancestor in
the paternal line.3 The Masai of Eastern Africa resort to a
simple device which enables them to speak of the dead
freely without risk of the inopportune appearance of the
ghost. As soon as a man or woman dies, they change
his or her name, and henceforth always speak of him or her
by the new name, while the old name falls into oblivion, and
to utter it in the presence of a kinsman of the deceased is
an insult which calls for vengeance. They assume that the
dead man will not know his new name, and so will not
answer to it when he hears it pronounced.4 Ghosts are
notoriously dull-witted ; nothing is easier than to dupe
them.
The same fear of the ghost, which moves people to
Fontana, "On the Nicobar Isles," Sahara, les Touareg du Nord, p. 431.
A siatick Researches, iii. (London, 1799), - J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines,
p. 154; W. H. Furness, Folk-lore in p. 42.
Borneo (Wallingford, Pennsylvania, '•' Myron Eels, "The Twana,
1S99), p. 26; J. E. Calder, "Native Chemakum, and Klallam Indians of
Tribes of Tasmania," Journal of the Washington Territory," Annual Report
Anthropological Institute, iii. (1874), of the Smithsonian Institute for 1887,
p. 23 ; J. Bonwick, Daily Life of the Part i. p. 656.
Tasnianians, pp. 97, 145, 1S3. 4 R. Andree, Ethnographische Par-
1 H. Duveyrier, Exploration du allelen und Vergleiche, p. 182 sq.
426 NAMES CHANGED chap.
suppress his old name, naturally leads all persons who bear
a similar name to exchange it for another, lest its utterance
should attract the attention of the ghost, who cannot
reasonably be expected to discriminate between all the
different applications of the same name. Thus we are told
that in the Adelaide and Encounter Bay tribes of South
Australia the repugnance to mentioning the names of
persons who have died lately is carried so far, that persons
who bear the same name as the deceased abandon it, and
either adopt temporary names or are known by any others
that happen to belong to them.1 The same practice was ob-
served by the aborigines of New South Wales,2 and is said
to be observed by the tribes of the Lower Murray River,3
and of King George's Sound in Western Australia.4 In
some Australian tribes the change of name thus brought
about is permanent ; the old name is laid aside for ever, and
the man is known by his new name for the rest of his life,
or at least until he is obliged to change it again for a like
reason.'1 Among the North American Indians all persons,
whether men or women, who bore the name of one who had
just died were obliged to abandon it and to adopt other
names, which was formally done at the first ceremony of
mourning for the dead." In some tribes to the east of the
Rocky Mountains this change of name lasted only during
the season of mourning,7 but in other tribes on the Pacific
Coast of North America it seems to have been permanent.8
Sometimes by an extension of the same reasoning all
the near relations of the deceased change their names, what-
ever they may happen to be, doubtless from a fear that the
^ ! W. Wyatt, in Native Tribes of 5 G. F. Angas, Savage Life and
South Australia, p. 165. Scenes in Australia and New Zealand,
2 D. Collins, Account of the English ii. 22S.
Colony in New South Wales (London, 6 Lafitau> Maurs dcs Sauvages
1804), p. 392. Ameriquains, ii. 434-
3 P. Bevendge, "Notes on the
dialects, habits, and mythology of the ' Charlevoix, Histoire de la Nouvelle
Lower Murray aborigines,*' Transac- France, vi. 109.
lions of the Royal Society of Victoria, 8 S. Powers, Tribes of California,
vi. 20;r/. p. 349; Myron Eels, "The Twana,
4 "Description of the natives of Chemakum, and Klallam Indians of
King George's Sound (Swan River) Washington Territory," Annual Report
and adjoining country,'* Journal of the of the Smithsonian Institute for 1887,
R. Geograph. Society, i. (1S32), p. 46 sq. p. 656.
ii AFTER A DEATH 427
sound of the familiar names might lure back the vagrant
spirit to its old home. Thus in some Victorian tribes the
ordinary names of all the next of kin were disused during
the period of mourning, and certain general terms, prescribed
by custom, were substituted for them. To call a mourner
by his own name was considered an insult to the departed,
and often led to fighting and bloodshed.1 Among Indian
tribes of North -Western America near relations of the
deceased often change their names " under an impression
that spirits will be attracted back to earth if they hear
familiar names often repeated." 2 Among the Lenguas of
South America not only is a dead man's name never
mentioned, but all the survivors change their names also.
They say that Death has been among them and has carried
off a list of the living, and that he will soon come back for
more victims ; hence in order to defeat his fell purpose they
change their names, believing that on his return Death,
though he has got them all on his list, will not be able to
identify them under their new names, and will depart to
pursue the search elsewhere.3
Further, when the name of the deceased happens to be
(that of some common object, such as an animal, or plant, or
ifire, or water, it is sometimes considered necessary to drop
/that word in ordinary speech and replace it by another. A
custom of this sort, it is plain, may easily be a potent agent
of change in language ; for where it prevails to any consider-
able extent many words must constantly become obsolete
1 and new ones spring up. And this tendency has been
remarked by observers who have recorded the custom in
Australia, America, and elsewhere. For example, with
regard to the Australian aborigines it has been noted that
" the dialects change with almost every tribe. Some tribes
name their children after natural objects ; and when the
person so named dies, the word is never again mentioned ;
another word has therefore to be invented for the object
1 J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines, der angranzendeii Lander Asiens, i.
p. 42. 107 sq. (as to the Kenayens of Cook's
- II. H. Bancroft, Native Races of Inlet and the neighbourhood).
the Pacific States, i. 248. Compare 3 F. de Azara, Voyages dans
Baer und Helmersen. Beitrage zur PAmc'riqne Mt'ridionale (Paris, 1S0S),
Kenntniss des ritssischen Rcichcs mid ii. 153 sq.
42S NAMES CHANGED chap.
after which the child was called." The writer gives as an
instance the case of a man whose name Karla signified
" fire " ; when Karla died, a new word for fire had to be
introduced. " Hence," adds the writer, " the language is
always changing." 1 In the Moorunde tribe the name for
"teal" used to be torpool ; but when a boy called Torpool
died, a new name {tilquaitdi) was given to the bird, and the
old name dropped out altogether from the language of the
tribe.- Sometimes, however, such substitutes for common
words were only in vogue for a limited time after the death,
and were then discarded in favour of the old words. Thus
a missionary, who lived among the Victorian aborigines,
remarks that " it is customary among these blacks to disuse
a word when a person has died whose name was the same
or even of the same sound. I find great difficulty in getting
blacks to repeat such words. I believe this custom is
common to all the Victorian tribes, though in course of time
the word is resumed again. I have seen among the Murray
blacks the dead freely spoken of when they have been dead
some time." 3 Again in the Encounter Bay tribe of South
Australia, if a man of the name of Ngnke, which means
" water," were to die, the whole tribe would be obliged to use
some other word to express water for a considerable time after
his decease. The writer who records this custom surmises
that it may explain the presence of a number of synonyms
in the language of the tribe.4 This conjecture is confirmed
by what we know of some Victorian tribes whose speech
comprised a regular set of synonyms to be used instead of
the common terms by all members of a tribe in times of
mourning. For instance, if a man called Waa (" crow ")
departed this life, during the period of mourning for him
nobody might call a crow a waa ; everybody had to speak of
the bird as a narrapart. When a person who rejoiced in the
title of Ringtail Opossum (weearn) had gone the way of all
flesh, his sorrowing relations and the tribe at large were
bound for a time to refer to ringtail opossums by the more
1 Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Vic- 3 J. Buhner, in Brough Smyth's
toria, ii. 266. Aborigines of Victoria, ii. 94.
4 H. E. A. Meyer, in Native Tribes
2 E. J. Eyre, Journals of Expeditions of South Australia, p. 199, compare
of Discovery, ii. 354 sq. p. xxix.
ii AFTER A DEATH 429
sonorous name of manuungkuurt. If the community were
plunged in grief for the loss of a respected female who bore
the honourable name of Turkey Bustard, the proper name
for turkey bustards, which was barrim barrim, went out and
tillit tilliitsh came in. And so mutatis mutandis with the
names of Black Cockatoo, Grey Duck, Gigantic Crane,
Kangaroo, Eagle, Dingo, and the rest.1
A similar custom used to be constantly transforming the
language of the Abipones of Paraguay, amongst whom,
however, a word once abolished seems never to have been
revived. New words, says the missionary Dobrizhoffer,
sprang up every year like mushrooms in a night, because all
words that resembled the names of the dead were abolished
by proclamation and others coined in their place. The
mint of words was in the hands of the old women of the
tribe, and whatever term they stamped with their approval
and put in circulation was immediately accepted without a
murmur by high and low alike, and spread like wildfire
through every camp and settlement of the tribe. You
would be astonished, says the same missionary, to see how
meekly the whole nation acquiesces in the decision of a
withered old hag, and how completely the old familiar words
fall instantly out of use and are never repeated either
through force of habit or forgetfulness. In the seven years
that Dobrizhoffer spent among these Indians the native word
for jaguar was changed thrice, and the words for crocodile,
thorn, and the slaughter of cattle underwent similar though
less varied vicissitudes. As a result of this habit, the
vocabularies of the missionaries teemed with erasures, old
words having constantly to be struck out as obsolete and
new ones inserted in their place.2
In the Nicobar Islands a similar practice has similarly
affected the speech of the natives. " A most singular
custom," says Mr. de Roepstorff, " prevails among them
which one would suppose must most effectually hinder the
' making of history,' or, at any rate, the transmission of
1 J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines, the name of a man who had recently
p. 43. Mr. Howitt mentions the case died {Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p.
of a native who arbitrarily substituted 249).
the name nobler ("spirituous liquor") - Dobrizhoffer, Historia de Abiponi-
for yan ("water") because Yan was bus (Vienna, 1784), ii. 199, 301.
43o TRADITION WEAKENED BY chap.
historical narrative. By a strict rule, which has all the
sanction of Nicobar superstition, no man's name may be
mentioned after his death ! To such a length is this carried
that when, as very frequently happens, the man rejoiced in
the name of ' Fowl,' « Hat,' ' Fire,' ' Road,' etc., in its
Nicobarese equivalent, the use of these words is carefully
eschewed for the future, not only as being the personal
designation of the deceased, but even as the names of the
common things they represent ; the words die out of the
language, and either new vocables are coined to express the
thing intended, or a substitute for the disused word is found
in other Nicobarese dialects or in some foreign tongue.
This extraordinary custom not only adds an element of^
instability to the language, but destroys the continuity of j
political life, and renders the record of past events precarious/
and vague, if not impossible." x
That a superstition which suppresses the names of the
dead must cut at the very root of historical tradition has
been remarked by other workers in this field. " The
Klamath people," observes Mr. A. S. Gatschet, " possess no
historic traditions going further back in time than a
century, for the simple reason that there was a strict
law prohibiting the mention of the person or acts of a
deceased individual by using- his name. This law was
rigidly observed among the Californians no less than among
the Oregonians, and on its transgression the death penalty
could be inflicted. This is certainly enough to suppress all
historical knowledge within a people. How can history be
written without names ? " 2 Among some of the tribes of
New South Wales the simple ditties, never more than two
lines long, to which the natives dance, are never transmitted
from one generation to another, because, when the rude poet
dies, " all the songs of which he was author are, as it were,-/
buried with him, inasmuch as they, in common with his veryl
name, are studiously ignored from thenceforward, conse-i
quently they are quite forgotten in a very short space of
1 F. A. de Roepstorff, " Tiom- 2 A. S. Gatschet, The Klamath
berombi, a Nicobar Tale," Journal of Indians of South-western Oregon (Con-
the Asiatic Society of Bengal, liii. tributions to North American Ethnology,
(1884), pt. i. p. 24 sq. vol. ii. pt. I), p. xli.
ii SUPPRESSING NAMES OF DEAD 431
time indeed. This custom of endeavouring persistently to
forget everything which had been in any way connected
with the dead entirely precludes the possibility of anything
of an historical nature having existence amongst them ; in
fact the most vital occurrence, if only dating a single genera-
tion back, is quite forgotten, that is to say, if the recounting
thereof should necessitate the mention of a defunct
aboriginal's name." l Thus among these simple savages
even a sacred bard could not avail to rescue an Australian
Agamemnon from the long night of oblivion.
In many tribes, however, the power of this superstition to
blot out the memory of the past is to some extent weakened
and impaired by a natural tendency of the human mind.
//Time, which wears out the deepest impressions, inevitably
[dulls, if it does not wholly efface, the print left on the savage
mind by the mystery and horror of death. Sooner or later,
as the memory of his loved ones fades slowly away, he
becomes more willing to speak of them, and thus their rude
names may sometimes be rescued by the philosophic inquirer
before they have vanished, like autumn leaves or winter
snows, into the vast undistinguished limbo of the past.
This was Sir George Grey's experience when he attempted
to trace the intricate system of kinship prevalent among the
natives of Western Australia. He says : " It is impossible
for any person, not well acquainted with the language of the
natives, and who does not possess great personal influence
over them, to pursue an inquiry of this nature ; for one of
the customs most rigidly observed and enforced amongst
them is, never to mention the name of a deceased person,
male or female. In an inquiry, therefore, which principally
turns upon the names of their ancestors, this prejudice must
be every moment violated, and a very great difficulty
encountered in the outset. The only circumstance which at
all enabled me to overcome this was, that the longer a
person has been dead the less repugnance do they evince in
1 P. Beveridge, " Of the aborigines custom of changing common words on
inhabiting the great lacustrine and the death of persons who bore them as
riverine depression of the Lower their names seems also to have been
Murray," etc., Journal and Proceedings observed by the Tasmanians. See J.
of the Royal Society of New South Bonwick, Daily Life of the Tasmanians,
Wales for 1883, vol. xvii. p. 65. The p. 145.
432 NAMES OF THE DEAD chap.
uttering his name. I, therefore, in the first instance,
endeavoured to ascertain only the oldest names on record ;
and on subsequent occasions, when I found a native alone,
and in a loquacious humour, I succeeded in filling up some
of the blanks. Occasionally, round their fires at night, I
managed to involve them in disputes regarding their
ancestors, and, on these occasions, gleaned much of the
information of which I was in want."1 In some of the
Victorian tribes the prohibition to mention the names of the
dead remained in force only during the period of mourn-
ing ; 2 in the Port Lincoln tribe of South Australia it
lasted many years.3 Among the Chinook Indians of North
America " custom forbids the mention of a dead man's
name, at least till many years have elapsed after the
bereavement." 4 In the Twana, Chemakum, and Klallam
tribes of Washington Territory the names of deceased
members may be mentioned two or three years after their
death.5 Among the Puyallup Indians the observance of the
taboo is relaxed after several years, when the mourners have
forgotten their grief ; and if the deceased was a famous
warrior, one of his descendants, for instance a great
grandson, may be named after him. In this tribe the
taboo is not much observed at any time except by the
relations of the dead.6 Similarly the Jesuit missionary
Lafitau tells us that the name of the departed and the
similar names of the survivors were, so to say, buried with
the corpse until, the poignancy of their grief being abated,
it pleased the relations to " lift up the tree and raise the
/dead." By raising the dead they meant bestowing the
name of the departed upon some one else, who thus became
to all intents and purposes a reincarnation of the deceased
since on the principles of savage philosophy the name is a
vital part, if not the soul, of the man. When Father
1 G. Grey, Journals of two Expedi- 5 Myron Eels, "The Twana, Chema-
tions of Discovery, ii. 231 sq. kum, and Klallam Indians of Washing-
2 J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines, ton Territory," Annual Report of the
p# 42. Smithsonian Institution for 1887, P-
3 C. W. Schiirmann, in Native
656.
6
t a /c tiTTr' ,/J 6 S- R- M'Caw, "Mortuary Cus-
/ rides of South Australia, p. 247. . f ., ~ „ ' „ _, , '
' v *' toms of the Puyallups," The American
4 Bancroft, Native Races of the Antiquarian and Oriental Journal,
Pacific States, iii. 156. viii. (1886), p. 235.
ii TEMPORARILY SUPPRESSED 433
Lafitau arrived at St. Louis to begin work among the
Iroquois, his colleagues decided that in order to make a
favourable impression on his flock the new shepherd should
assume the native name of his deceased predecessor, Father
Briiyas, " the celebrated missionary," who had lived many
years among the Indians and enjoyed their high esteem.
But Father Briiyas had been called from his earthly labours
to his heavenly rest only four short months before, and it
was too soon, in the phraseology of the Iroquois, to " raise
up the tree." However, raised up it was in spite of them ;
and though some bolder spirits protested that their new
pastor had wronged them by taking the name of his
predecessor, " nevertheless," says Father Lafitau, " they did
not fail to regard me as himself in another form (itn autre
lui-meme), since I had entered into all his rights." l Among
the Tartars in the Middle Ages the name of the dead might
not be uttered till the third generation.2
In some cases the period during which the name of the
deceased may not be pronounced seems to bear a close
relation to the time during which his mortal remains may
be supposed to still hold together. Thus, of some Indian
tribes on the north-west coast of America it is said they
may not speak the name of a dead person " until the
bones are finally disposed of." Among the Narrinyeri of
South Australia the name might not be uttered until the
corpse had decayed.4 In the Encounter Bay tribe of the
same country the dead body is dried over a fire, packed up
in mats, and carried about for several months among the scenes
which had been familiar to the deceased in his life. Next it
is placed on a platform of sticks and left there till it has
1 Lafitau, Mceurs des Saitvages Crook, p. 132).
Ameriquains, ii. 434. On the custom 2 Plan de Carpin (de Plano Carpini).
of "raising up the dead" by giving Reiation dcs Mongols ou Tartares,
their names to living persons, see ed. D'Avezac, cap. iii. § hi. The
Relations des Jhuites, 1642, pp. 53, 85 writer's statement ("nee nomen pro-
sq.; id., 1644, p. 66 sq. Charlevoix prium ejlls usque ad tertiam ?ener.
merely says that the taboo on the ationem audet aliquis nominare ") is not
names of the dead lasted "a certain very clear
time " (Histoire de la Nouvelle France,
vi. 109). "A good long while" is Bancroft, Native Races of the
the phrase used by Captain Bourke in Pacific States, i. 248.
speaking of the same custom among 4 G. Taplin, in Arative Tribes of
the Apaches (On the Border with South Australia, p. 19.
VOL. I 2 F
434
NAMES OF THE DEAD chap.
completely decayed, whereupon the next of kin takes the
skull and uses it as a drinking-cup. After that the name of
the departed may be uttered without offence. Were it pro-
nounced sooner, his kinsmen would be deeply offended, and
a war might be the result.1 The rule that the name of
the dead may not be spoken until his body has mouldered
away seems to point to a belief that the spirit continues
to exist only so long as the body does so, and that, when
the material frame is dissolved, the spiritual part of the
man perishes with it, or goes away, or at least becomes so
feeble and incapable of mischief that his name may be
bandied about with impunity.2 This view is to some
extent confirmed by the practice of the Arunta tribe in
Central Australia. We have seen that among them no
one may mention the name of the deceased during the
period of mourning for fear of disturbing and annoying the
ghost, who is believed to be walking about at large. Some
of the relations of the dead man, it is true, such as his
parents, elder brothers and sisters, paternal aunts, mother-in-
law, and all his sons-in-law, whether actual or possible, are
debarred all their lives from taking his name into their
lips ; but other people, including his wife, children, grand-
children, grandparents, younger brothers and sisters, and
father-in-law, are free to name him so soon as he has ceased
to walk the earth and hence to be dangerous. Some twelve
or eighteen months after his death the people seem to think
1 H. E. A. Meyer, in Native Tribes died within a certain time are dug up
of South Australia, p. 199. and the decaying flesh scraped from the
bones. See A. C. Kruijt, " Een en
2 Some of the Indians of Guiana ander aangaande het geestelijk en
brin<r food and drink to their dead so maatschappelijk leven van den Poso-
long°as the flesh remains on the bones ; Alfoer," Mededeelingen van wege het
when it has mouldered away, they con- Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap,
elude that the man himself has departed. xxxix. (1895), pp. 26, 32 sqq. The
See A. Biet, Voyage de la France Equin- Matacos Indians of the Grand Chaco'
oxiale en F Isle de Cayenne (Paris, 1664), believe that the soul of a dead man
p. 392. The Alfoors of Central Celebes does not pass down into the nether
believe that the souls of the dead cannot world until his body is decomposed or
enter the spirit-land until all the flesh burnt. See J. Pelleschi, Los Initios
has been removed from their bones ; Matacos (Buenos Ayres, 1897), p. 102.
till that has been done, the gods (la/uoa) These ideas perhaps explain the wide-
in the other world could not bear the spread custom of disinterring the dead
stench of the corpse. Accordingly at a after a certain time and disposing of
great festival the bodies of all who have their bones otherwise.
ii TEMPORARILY SUPPRESSED 435
that the dead man has enjoyed his liberty long enough, and
that it is time to confine his restless spirit within narrower
bounds. Accordingly a grand battue or ghost-hunt brings
the days of mourning to an end. The favourite haunt of
the deceased is believed to be the burnt and deserted camp
where he died. Here therefore on a certain day a band of
men and women, the men armed with shields and spear-
throwers, assemble and begin dancing round the charred
and blackened remains of the camp, shouting and beating
the air with their weapons and hands in order to drive
away the lingering spirit from the spot he loves too well.
When the dancing is over, the whole party proceed to the
grave at a run, chasing the ghost before them. It is in
vain that the unhappy ghost makes a last bid for freedom,
and, breaking away from the beaters, doubles back towards
the camp ; the leader of the party is prepared for this
manceuvre, and by making a long circuit adroitly cuts off
the retreat of the fugitive. Finally, having run him to
earth, they trample him down into the grave, dancing and
stamping on the heaped-up soil, while with downward
thrusts through the air they beat and force him under
ground. There, lying in his narrow house, flattened and
prostrate under a load of earth, the poor ghost sees his
widow wearing the gay feathers of the ring-neck parrot in
her hair, and he knows that the time of her mourning for
him is over. The loud shouts of the men and women show
him that they are not to be frightened and bullied by him
any more, and that he had better lie quiet. But he may
still watch over his friends, and guard them from harm, and
visit them in dreams.1
When we see that in primitive society the names of
mere commoners, whether alive or dead, are matters of such
anxious care, we need not be surprised that great precau-
tions should be taken to guard from harm the names of
sacred kings and priests. Thus the name of the king of
Dahomey is always kept secret, lest the knowledge of it
should enable some evil-minded person to do him a mis-
chief. The appellations by which the different kings of
Dahomey have been known to Europeans are not their true
1 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 49S-508.
436 NAMES OF KINGS chap.
names, but mere titles, or what the natives call "strong
names " {nyi-sese). As a rule, these " strong names " are the
first words of sentences descriptive of certain qualities.
Thus Agaja, the name by which the fourth king of the
dynasty was known, was part of a sentence meaning, " A
spreading tree must be lopped before it can be cast into the
fire " ; and Tegbwesun, the name of the fifth king, formed
the first word of a sentence which signified, " No one can
take the cloth off the neck of a wild bull." The natives
seem to think that no harm comes of such titles being
known, since they are not, like the birth names, vitally con-
nected with their owners.1 In Siam it used to be difficult
to ascertain the king's real name, since it was carefully kept
secret from fear of sorcery ; any one who mentioned it was
clapped into gaol. The king might only be referred to
under certain high-sounding titles, such as "the august,"
" the perfect," " the supreme," " the great emperor," " descend-
ant of the angels," and so on.2 In Burma it was accounted
an impiety of the deepest dye to mention the name of the
reigning sovereign ; Burmese subjects, even when they were
far from their country, could not be prevailed upon to do so.3
The proper name of the Emperor of China may neither be
pronounced nor written by any of his subjects.4 Coreans are
forbidden to utter the king's name, which, indeed, is seldom
known.5 When a prince ascends the throne of Cambodia
he ceases to be designated by his real name ; and if that
name happens to be a common word in the language, the
word is often changed. Thus, for example, since the reign
of King Ang Duong the word duong, which meant a small
coin, has been replaced by dom? In the island of Sunda it
is taboo to utter any word which coincides with the name of
a prince or chief.7 The name of the rajah of Bolang Mon-
gondo, a district in the west of Celebes, is never mentioned
1 A. B. Ellis, Ewe-speaking Peoples (London, 1878), p. 35.
of the Slave Coast, p. 98 sq. 5 Mrs. Bishop, Korea and her Neigh-
2 Loubere, Du royaume de Siam bours (London, 1 898), i. 48.
(Amsterdam, 1691), i. 306 ; Pallegoix, 6 E. Aymonier, Notice sur le Cam-
Royaume Thai on Siam, i. 260. bodge (Paris, 1875), p. 22.
3 J. S. Polack, Manners and Cits- 7 K. F. Holle, "Snippers van den
toms of the New Zealanders (London, Regent van Galoeh," Tijdschrift voor
1840), ii. 127, note 43. Indische Taal- Land- en Vblkenkunde,
4 J. Edkins, Religion in China2 xxvii. (1882), p. 10 1.
3
ii AND CHIEFS NOT SPOKEN 437
except in case of urgent necessity, and even then his pardon
must be asked repeatedly before the liberty is taken.1
Among the Zulus no man will mention the name of the
chief of his tribe or the names of the progenitors of the chief,
so far as he can remember them ; nor will he utter common
words which coincide with or merely resemble in sound
tabooed names. " As, for instance, the Zungu tribe say mata
for manzi (water), and inkosta for tsJianti (grass), and embi-
gatdn for umkondo (assegai), and inyatugo for enhlela (path),
because their present chief is Umfan-o inhlela, his father was
Manzini, his grandfather Imkondo, and one before him
Tshani." In the tribe of the Dwandwes there was a chief
called Langa, which means the sun ; hence the name of the
sun was changed from langa to gala, and so remains to
this day, though Langa died more than a hundred years ago.
Once more, in the Xnumayo tribe the word meaning " to
herd cattle " was changed from alusa or ayusa to kagesa,
because u-Mayusi was the name of the chief. Besides these
taboos, which were observed by each tribe separately, all the
Zulu tribes united in tabooing the name of the king who
reigned over the whole nation. Hence, for example, when
Panda was king of Zululand, the word for " a root of a tree,"
which is impando, was changed to nxabo. Again, the word
for " lies " or " slander " was altered from amacebo to amakwata,
because amacebo contains a syllable of the name of the
famous King Cetchwayo. These substitutions are not, how-
ever, carried so far by the men as by the women, who omit
every sound even remotely resembling one that occurs in a
tabooed name. At the king's kraal, indeed, it is sometimes
difficult to understand the speech of the royal wives, as they
treat in this fashion the names not only of the king and his
forefathers but even of his and their brothers back for genera-
tions. When to these tribal and national taboos we add
those family taboos on the names of connections by marriage
which have been already described,2 we can easily under-
stand how it comes about that in Zululand every tribe has
words peculiar to itself, and that the women have a con-
1 N. P. Wilken en J. A. Schwarz, van wege het Nederlandsclie Zendeling-
" Allerlei over het land en volk van genootschap, xi. (1867), p. 356.
Bolaang Mongondou," Mededeelingen 2 Above, p. 413 sq.
438 NAMES OF CHIEFS chap.
siderable vocabulary of their own. Members, too, of one
family may be debarred from using words employed by
those of another. The women of one kraal, for instance,
may call a hyena by its ordinary name ; those of the next
may use the common substitute ; while in a third the substi-
tute may also be unlawful and another term may have to be
invented to supply its place. Hence the Zulu language at
the present day almost presents the appearance of being a
double one ; indeed, for multitudes of things it possesses three
or four synonyms, which through the blending of tribes are
known all over Zululand.1
In Madagascar a similar custom everywhere prevails and
has resulted, as among the Zulus, in producing certain
dialectic differences in the speech of the various tribes.
There are no family names in Madagascar, and almost every
personal name is drawn from the language of every day and
signifies some common object or action or quality, such as a
bird, a beast, a tree, a plant, a colour, and so on. Now,
whenever one of these common words forms the name or
part of the name of the chief of the tribe, it becomes sacred
and may no longer be used in its ordinary signification as
the name of a tree, an insect, or what not. Hence a new
name for the object must be invented to replace the one
which has been discarded. Often the new name consists of
a descriptive epithet or a periphrasis. Thus when the prin-
cess Rabodo became queen in 1863 she took the name of
Rasoherina. Now sohcrina was the word for the silkworm
moth, but having been assumed as the name of the sovereign
it could no longer be applied to the insect, which ever since
has been called zany-dandy, " offspring of silk." So, again,
if a chief had or took the name of an animal, say of the dog
{ambod), and was known as Ramboa, the animal would hence-
forth be called by another name, probably a descriptive one,
such as "the barker" (famovo) or "the driver away" {fan-
droaka), etc. In the western part of Imerina there was a
1 J. Shooter, The Kafirs of Natal South African tribes," Journal of the
and the Zulu Country, p. 221 sq. ; Anthropological Institute, xx. (1891),
David Leslie, Among the Zulus and p. 131. The account in the text is based
Amatongas2 (Edinburgh, 1875), PP- mainly on Leslie's description, which is
172-179 ; J. Macdonald, " Manners, by far the fullest,
customs, superstitions, and religions of
ii NOT SPOKEN 439
chief called Andria-mamba ; but mamba was one of the
names of the crocodile, so the chiefs subjects might not call
the reptile by that name and were always scrupulous to use
another. It is easy to conceive what confusion and un-
certainty may thus be introduced into a language when it is
spoken by many little local tribes each ruled by a petty chief
with his own sacred name. Yet there are tribes and people
who submit to this tyranny of words as their fathers did
before them from time immemorial. The inconvenient re-
sults of the custom are especially marked on the western
coast of the island, where, on account of the large number of
independent chieftains, the names of things, places, and
rivers have suffered so many changes that confusion often
arises, for when once common words have been banned by
the chiefs the natives will not acknowledge to have ever
known them in their old sense.1
The sanctity attributed to the persons of chiefs in Poly-
nesia naturally extended also to their names, which on the
primitive view are hardly separable from the personality of
their owners. Hence in Polynesia we find the same system-
atic prohibition to utter the names of chiefs or of common
words resembling them which we have already met with in
Zululand and Madagascar. Thus in New Zealand the name
of a chief is held so sacred that, when it happens to be a
common word, it may not be used in the language, and
another has to be found to replace it. For example, a chief
to the southward of East Cape bore the name of Maripi,
which signified a knife, hence a new word (nekra) for knife
was introduced, and the old one became obsolete. Else-
where the word for water {wai) had to be changed, because
it chanced to be the name of the chief, and would have been
desecrated by being applied to the vulgar fluid as well as to
I his sacred person. This taboo naturally produced a plentiful
crop of synonyms in the Maori language, and travellers
newly arrived in the country were sometimes puzzled at find-
1 Tyerman and Bennet, Journal of Madagascar Magazine, No. xi. (Christ-
Voyages and Travels, ii. 525 sq. ; J. mas 1887), p. 308 sq. ; id., in Journal of
Sibree, The Great African Island, p. the Anthropological 'Znstitute,xxi. (1887),
150 sq. ; id., "Curiosities of words pp. 226 sqq. ; A. Grandidier, " Les
connected with royalty and chieftain- rites funeraires chez les Malagasches,"
ship," Antananarivo Annual and lyevucd'1 Ethnographic, v. (1886), p. 224.
44o NAMES OF KINGS chap.
ing the same things called by quite different names in neigh-
bouring tribes.1 When a king comes to the throne in
Tahiti, any words in the language that resemble his name in
sound must be changed for others. In former times, if any
man were so rash as to disregard this custom and to use the
forbidden words, not only he but all his relations were
immediately put to death.2 On the accession of King Otoo,
which happened before Vancouver's visit to Tahiti, the
proper names of all the chiefs were changed, as well as forty
or fifty of the commonest words in the language, and every
native was obliged to adopt the new terms, for any neglect
to do so was punished with the greatest severity.3 When
a certain king named Tu came to the throne of Tahiti the
word tit, which means " to stand," was changed to tin ; fetu,
"a star," became fetia ; tui, "to strike," was turned into tiai,
and so on. Sometimes, as in these instances, the new names
were formed by merely changing or dropping some letter or
letters of the original words ; in other cases the substituted
terms were entirely different words, whether chosen for their
similarity of meaning though not of sound, or adopted from
another dialect, or arbitrarily invented. But the changes thus
introduced were only temporary ; on the death of the king the
new words fell into disuse, and the original ones were revived.4
In ancient Greece the names of the priests and other
high officials who had to do with the performances of the
Eleusinian mysteries might not be uttered in their lifetime.
To pronounce them was a legal offence. The pedant in
Lucian tells how he fell in with these august personages
haling along to the police court a ribald fellow who had
dared to name them, though well he knew that ever since
their consecration it was unlawful to do so, because they had
become anonymous, having lost their old names and acquired
new and sacred titles.5 From two inscriptions found at
1 J. S. Polack, Planners and Cits- 3 Vancouver, Voyage of Discovery to
fonts of the New Zealanders, i. 37 sq., the North Pacific Ocean and round the
ii. 126 sq. Compare E. Tregear, World (London, 1798), i. 135.
" The Maoris of New Zealand," Jour- 4 United States Exploring Expedi-
nal of the Anthropological Institute, Hon, Ethnography and Philology, by
xix. (1890), p. 123. Horatio Hale (Philadelphia, 1846), p.
2 Cook, Voyages (London, 1809), 288 sq.
vi. 155 (Third Voyage). Compare W. 5 Lucian, Lexiphanes, 10. The in-
Ellis, Polynesian Researches, iii. 101. scriptional and other evidence of this
II
AND PRIESTS NOT SPOKEN
441
Eleusis it appears that the names of the priests were
committed to the depths of the sea ; * probably they were
engraved on tablets of bronze or lead, which were then
thrown into deep water in the Gulf of Salamis. The inten-
tion doubtless was to keep the names a profound secret ;
and how could that be done more surely than by sinking
them in the sea ? what human vision could spy them
glimmering far down in the dim depths of the green
water ? A clearer illustration of the confusion between the
incorporeal and the corporeal, between the name and its
material embodiment, could hardly be found than in this
practice of civilised Greece. Nothing quite so primitive has
met us among the superstitions cherished on the subject of
names by the Zulus of Africa and the Maoris of New
Zealand.
When the name is held to be a vital part of the person,
it is natural to suppose that the mightier the person the
more potent must be his name. Hence the names of super-
natural beings, such as gods and spirits, are commonly
believed to be endowed with marvellous virtues, and the
mere utterance of them may work wonders and disturb the
course of nature. For this reason the sacred books of the
Mongols, which narrate the miraculous deeds of the divinities,
are allowed to be read only in spring or summer ; because
at other seasons the reading of them would bring on tempests
Greek superstition was first brought to
the notice of anthropologists by Mr.
W. R. Paton in an interesting article,
';The holy names of the Eleusinian
priests," International Folk-lore Con-
gress, iSgi, Papers and Transactions,
pp. 202-214. Compare E. Maass,
Orpheus (Munich, 1895), P- 7°-
1 Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca ex
lapidibits conlecta, No. 863 ; 'E<pri/j.epis
apxa-ioXoyiKr}, 1883, col. 79 sq. From
the latter of these inscriptions we learn
that the name might be made public
after the priest's death. Further, a
reference of Eunapius ( Vitae Sophis-
tarwn, p. 475 of the Didot edition)
shows that the name was revealed to
the initiated. In the essay cited in the
preceding note Mr. W. R. Paton as-
sumes that it was the new and sacred
name which was kept secret and com-
mitted to the sea. The case is not
clear, but both the evidence and the
.probability seem to me in favour of the
view that it was rather the old everyday
name of the priest or priestess which
was put away at his or her consecration.
If, as is not improbable, these sacred
personages had to act the parts of gods
and goddesses at the mysteries, it might
well be deemed indecorous and even
blasphemous to recall the vulgar names
by which they had been known in the
familiar intercourse of daily life. If
our clergy, to suppose an analogous
case, had to personate the most exalted
beings of sacred history, it would surely
be grossly irreverent to address them
by their ordinary names during the
performance of their solemn functions.
442 NAMES OF GODS chap.
or snow.1 When Mr. Campbell was travelling with some
Bcchuanas, he asked them one morning after breakfast to
tell him some of their stories, but they informed him that
were they to do so before sunset, the clouds would fall from
the heavens upon their heads.2 Most of the rites of the
Navajo Indians may be celebrated only in winter, when the
thunder is silent and the rattlesnakes are hibernating. Were
they to tell of their chief gods or narrate the myths of the
days of old at any other time, the Indians believe that they
would soon be killed by lightning or snake-bites. When Dr.
Washington Matthews was in New Mexico, he often em-
ployed as his guide and informant a liberal-minded member
of the tribe who had lived with Americans and Mexicans
and seemed to be free from the superstitions of his fellows.
" On one occasion," says Dr. Matthews, " during the month
of August, in the height of the rainy season, I had him in my
study conversing with him. In an unguarded moment, on
his part, I led him into a discussion about the gods of his
people, and neither of us had noticed a heavy storm coming
over the crest of the Zufii mountains, close by. We were just
talking of Estsanatlehi, the goddess of the west, when the
house was shaken by a terrific peal of thunder. He rose at
once, pale and evidently agitated, and whispering hoarsely,
' Wait till Christmas ; they are angry,' he hurried away. I
have seen many such evidences of the deep influence of this
superstition on them." 3 Other Indian tribes also will only tell
their mythic tales in winter, when the snow lies like a pall on
the ground and lakes and rivers are covered with sheets of
ice ; for then the spirits underground cannot hear the stories
in which their names are made free with by merry groups
gathered round the fire.4
Among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia the
superstition about names has affected in a very curious way
the social structure of the tribe. The nobles have two
different sets of names, one for use in winter and the other
1 G. Timkowski, Travels of the mountain chant, a Navajo ceremony,"
Russian Mission through Mongolia to Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau
China (London, 1827), ii. 348. of Ethnology (Washington, 1887), p.
2 J. Campbell, Travels in South 386 sq.
Africa, Second Journey, ii. 204 sq. 4 H. R. Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes,
3 Washington Matthews, " The iii. 314, 492.
n KEPT SECRET 443
in summer. Their winter names are those which were given
them at initiation by their guardian spirits, and as these
spirits appear to their devotees only in winter, the names
which they bestowed on the Indians may not be pronounced
in summer. Conversely the summer names may not be
used in winter. The change from summer to winter names
takes place from the moment when the spirits are supposed
to be present, and it involves a complete transformation of
the social system ; for whereas during summer the people
are grouped in clans, in winter they are grouped in societies,
each society consisting of all persons who have been initiated
by the same spirit and have received from him the same
magical powers. Thus among these Indians the funda-
mental constitution of society changes with the seasons : in
summer it is organised on a basis of kin, in winter on a basis
of spiritual affinity ; for one half the year it is civil, for the
other half religious.1
Primitive man creates his gods in his own image.
Xenophanes remarked long ago that the complexion of negro
gods was black and their noses flat ; that Thracian gods
were ruddy and blue-eyed ; and that if horses, oxen, and
lions only believed in gods and had hands wherewith to
portray them, they would doubtless fashion their deities in
the form of horses, and oxen, and lions.2 Hence just as the
,furtive savage conceals his real name because he fears that
(sorcerers might make an evil use of it, so he fancies that his
gods must likewise keep their true names secret, lest other
gods or even men should learn the mystic sounds and thus
be able to conjure with them. Nowhere was this crude
'conception of the secrecy and magical virtue of the divine
name more firmly held or more fully developed than in
ancient Egypt, where the superstitions of a dateless past were
embalmed in the hearts of the people hardly less effectually
than the bodies of cats and crocodiles and the rest of the
divine menagerie in their rock-cut tombs. The conception
is well illustrated by a story which tells how the subtle Isis
1 Fr. Boas, " The social organization 2 Xenophanes, quoted by Eusebius,
and the secret societies of the Kwakiutl Praeparatio Evangelii, xiii. 13, p. 269
Indians," Report of the U.S. National sq„ ed. Heinichen, and by Clement
Museum for 1895, PP- 39^, 418 s</., of Alexandria, Strom, vii. 4, p. 840 sq.,
503, 504. ed. Potter.
444 SECRET NAME OF RA chap.
wormed his secret name from Ra, the great Egyptian god of
the sun. Isis, so runs the tale, was a woman mighty in
words, and she was weary of the world of men, and yearned
after the world of the gods. And she meditated in her
heart, saying, " Cannot I by virtue of the great name of Ra
make myself a goddess and reign like him in heaven and
earth ? " For Ra had many names, but the great name which
gave him all power over gods and men was known to none but
himself. Now the god was by this time grown old ; he
slobbered at the mouth and his spittle fell upon the ground.
So Isis gathered up the spittle and the earth with it, and
kneaded thereof a serpent and laid it in the path where the
great god passed every day to his double kingdom after his
heart's desire. And when he came forth according to his
wont, attended by all his company of gods, the sacred ser-
pent stung him, and the god opened his mouth and cried, and
his cry went up to heaven. And the company of gods cried,
" What aileth thee ? " and the gods shouted, " Lo and behold !"
But he could not answer ; his jaws rattled, his limbs shook,
the poison ran through his flesh as the Nile floweth over the
land. When the great god had stilled his heart, he cried to
his followers, " Come to me, O my children, offspring of my
body. I am a prince, the son of a prince, the divine seed of
a god. My father devised my name ; my father and my
mother gave me my name, and it remained hidden in my
body since my birth, that no magician might have magic
power over me. I went out to behold that which I have
made, I walked in the two lands which I have created, and
lo ! something stung me. What it was, I know not. Was
it fire? was it water? My heart is on fire, my flesh
trembleth, all my limbs do quake. Bring me the children
of the gods with healing words and understanding lips, whose
power reacheth to heaven." Then came to him the children
of the gods and they were very sorrowful. And Isis came
with her craft, whose mouth is full of the breath of life,
whose spells chase pain away, whose word maketh the dead
to live. She said, "What is it, divine Father? what is it?"
The holy god opened his mouth, he spake and said, " I went
upon my way, I walked after my heart's desire in the two
regions which I have made to behold that which I have
ii SECRET NAME OF RA 445
created, and lo ! a serpent that I saw not stung me. Is it
fire ? is it water ? I am colder than water, I am hotter than
fire, all my limbs sweat, I tremble, mine eye is not steadfast,
I behold not the sky, the moisture bedeweth my face as in
summer-time." Then spake Isis, " Tell me thy name, divine
Father, for the man shall live who is called by his name."
Then answered Ra, " I created the heavens and the earth, I
ordered the mountains, I made the great and wide sea, I
stretched out the two horizons like a curtain. I am he who
openeth his eyes and it is light, and who shutteth them and
it is dark. At his command the Nile riseth, but the gods
know not his name. I am Khepera in the morning, I am
Ra at noon, I am Turn at eve." But the poison was not
taken away from him ; it pierced deeper, and the great god
could no longer walk. Then said Isis to him, " That was
not thy name that thou spakest unto me. Oh tell it me, that
the poison may depart ; for he shall live whose name is
named." Now the poison burned like fire, it was hotter
than the flame of fire. The god said, " I consent that Isis
shall search into me, and that my name shall pass from my
breast into hers." Then the god hid himself from the gods,
and his place in the ship of eternity was empty. Thus was the
name of the great god taken from him, and Isis, the witch,
spake, " Flow away poison, depart from Ra. It is I, even I,
who overcome the poison and cast it to the earth ; for the
name of the great god hath been taken away from him. Let
Ra live and let the poison die." Thus spake great Isis, the
queen of the gods, she who knows Ra and his true name.1
tThus we see that the real name of the god, with which
lis power was inextricably bound up, was supposed to be
odged, in an almost physical sense, somewhere in his breast,
Vom which it could be extracted by a sort of surgical opera-
tion and transferred with all its supernatural powers to the
breast of another. In Egypt attempts like that of Isis to
1 A. Erman, Aegypten tend aegyp- lxxxix.-xci. ; id., Egyptian Magic, p.
tisches Leben im Altertum, pp. 359- 136 sqq. The abridged form of the
362 ; A. Wiedemann, Die Religion story given in the text is based on a
der alten Aegypter, pp. 29-32 ; G. comparison of these various versions, of
Maspero, Histoire ancienne des peuples which Erman'sis slightly, and Maspero's
de P Orient classique : les origines, pp. much curtailed. Mr. Budge's version
162-164; E. A. Wallis Budge, The is reproduced by Mr. E. Clodd {Tom
Book of the Dead (London, 1S95), pp. Tit Tot, p. 180 sqq.).
446 SECRET NAMES OE GODS chap.
appropriate the power of a high god by possessing herself
of his name were not mere legends told of the mythical
beings of a remote past ; every Egyptian magician aspired
to wield like powers by similar means. For it was believed
that he who possessed the true name possessed the very
being of god or man, and could force even a deity to obey
him as a slave obeys his master. Thus the art of the
magician consisted in obtaining from the gods a revelation
of their sacred names, and he left no stone unturned to
accomplish his end. When once a god in a moment of
weakness or forgetfulness had imparted to the wizard the
wondrous lore, the deity had no choice but to submit
humbly to the man or pay the penalty of his contumacy.1
In one papyrus we find the god Typhon thus adjured : " I
invoke thee by thy true names, in virtue of which thou canst
not refuse to hear me " ; and in another the magician threatens
Osiris that if the god does not do his bidding he will name
him aloud in the port of Busiris.2 In modern Egypt the
magician still works his old enchantments by the same
ancient means ; only the name of the god by which he con-
jures is different. The man who knows " the most great
name " of God can, we are told, by the mere utterance of it
kill the living, raise the dead, transport himself instantly
wherever he pleases, and perform any other miracle.3
The belief in the magic virtue of divine names was
shared by the Romans. When they sat down before a city,
the priests addressed the guardian deity of the place in a
set form of prayer or incantation, inviting him to abandon
the beleaguered city and come over to the Romans, who
would treat him as well as or better than he had ever
been treated in his old home. Hence the name of the
guardian deity of Rome was kept a profound secret, lest the
enemies of the republic might lure him away, even as the
Romans themselves had induced many gods to desert, like
1 G. Maspero, Etudes de Mythologie Leben im Altertum, p. 472 sq. ; E. A.
et d'Air/u'ologie Egyptienne (Paris, Wallis Budge, Egyptian A/agic, p. 157
1893), ii. 297 sq. sqq.
2 E. Lefebure, " La vertu et la vie du
1 nora en Egypte," M.'usine, viii. 3 E. W. Lane, Manners and Customs
(1897), col. 227 sq. Compare A. of the Ancient Egyptians (Paisley and
Erman, Aegypten und aegyptisches London, 1895), cn- x''- P- 273-
ii ROYAL TABOOS 447
rats, the falling fortunes of cities that had sheltered them in
happier days.1
If the reader has had the patience to follow this long
and perhaps tedious examination of the superstitions attaching
to personal names, he will probably agree that the mystery
in which the names of royal personages are so often shrouded
is no isolated phenomenon, no arbitrary expression of courtly
servility and adulation, but merely the particular applica-
tion of a general law of primitive thought, which includes
within its scope common folk and gods as well as kings and
priests.
It would be easy to extend the list of royal and priestly
taboos, but the above may suffice as specimens. To
conclude this part of our subject it only remains to state
summarily the general conclusions to which our inquiries
have thus far conducted us. We have seen that in savage
or barbarous society there are often found men to whom the
superstition of their fellows ascribes a controlling influence
over the general course of nature. Such men are accord-
ingly adored and treated as gods. Whether these human
divinities also hold temporal sway over the lives and fortunes
of their adorers, or whether their functions are purely spiritual
and supernatural, in other words, whether they are kings as
well as gods or only the latter, is a distinction which hardly
concerns us here. Their supposed divinity is the essential
fact with which we have to deal. In virtue of it they are a
pledge and guarantee to their worshippers of the continuance
and orderly succession of those physical phenomena upon
which mankind depends for subsistence. Naturally, there-
fore, the life and health of such a god-man are matters of
anxious concern to the people whose welfare and even
existence are bound up with his ; naturally he is constrained
by them to conform to such rules as the wit of early man
has devised for averting the ills to which flesh is heir, includ-
1 Pliny, Nat. Hist, xxviii. iS ; faned. The city of Rome itself had, we
Macrobius, Saturn, iii. 9 ; Servius on are told, a secret name which it was
Virgil, Aen.ii. 351 ; Plutarch, Quaest. unlawful to divulge (Pliny, Nat. Hist.
Rom. 61. According to Servius (I.e.) iii. 65 ; Macrobius, I.e. ; Joannes
it was forbidden by the pontifical law Lydus, De Mensibus, iv. 50, p. 85, ed.
to mention any Roman god by his Bekker).
proper name, lest it should be pro-
448 ROYAL TABOOS chap.
ing the last ill, death. These rules, as an examination of
them has shown, are nothing but the maxims with which, on
the primitive view, every man of common prudence must
comply if he would live long in the land. But while in the
case of ordinary men the observance of the rules is left to
the choice of the individual, in the case of the god-man it
is enforced under penalty of dismissal from his high station,
or even of death. For his worshippers have far too great
a stake in his life to allow him to play fast and loose with
it. Therefore all the quaint superstitions, the old - worla
maxims, the venerable saws which the ingenuity of savage
philosophers elaborated long ago, and which old women at
chimney corners still impart as treasures of great price to
their descendants gathered round the cottage fire on winter
evenings — all these antique fancies clustered, all these cob-
webs of the brain were spun about the path of the old king,
the human god, who, immeshed in them like a fly in the
toils of a spider, could hardly stir a limb for the threads of
custom, " light as air but strong as links of iron," that
crossing and recrossing each other in an endless maze bound
him fast within a network of observances from which death
or deposition alone could release him.
Thus to students of the past the life of the old kings
and priests teems with instruction. In it was summed up1
all that passed for wisdom when the world was young. It
was the perfect pattern after which every man strove to
shape his life ; a faultless model constructed with rigorous
accuracy upon the lines laid down by a barbarous philosophy.
Crude and false as that philosophy may seem to us, it would
be unjust to deny it the merit of logical consistency. Start-
ing from a conception of the vital principle as a tiny being
or soul existing in, but distinct and separable from, the
living being, it deduces for the practical guidance of life a
system of rules which in general hangs well together and
forms a fairly complete and harmonious whole. The flaw —
and it is a fatal one — of the system lies not in its reasoning,
but in its premises ; in its conception of the nature of life,
not in any irrelevancy of the conclusions which it draws
from that conception. But to stigmatise these premises as
ridiculous because we can easily detect their falseness, would
ii OUR DEBT TO THE SAVAGE 449
be ungrateful as well as unphilosophical. We stand upon
the foundation reared by the generations that have gone
before, and we can but dimly realise the painful and pro-
longed efforts which it has cost humanity to struggle up to
the point, no very exalted one after all, which we have
reached. Our gratitude is due to the nameless and forgotten
toilers, whose patient thought and active exertions have
largely made us what we are. The amount of new know-
ledge which one age, certainly which one man, can add to
the common store is small, and it argues stupidity or dis-
honesty, besides ingratitude, to ignore the heap while vaunt-
ing the few grains which it may have been our privilege to
iadd to it. There is indeed little danger at present of
undervaluing the contributions which modern times and
even classical antiquity have made to the general advance-
ment of our race. But when we pass these limits, the case
is different. Contempt and ridicule or abhorrence and
denunciation are too often the only recognition vouchsafed
to the savage and his ways. Yet of the benefactors whom
we are bound thankfully to commemorate, many, perhaps
most, were savages. For when all is said and done our
resemblances to the savage are still far more numerous than
our differences from him ; and what we have in common
with him, and deliberately retain as true and useful, we owe
to our savage forefathers who slowly acquired by experience
and transmitted to us by inheritance those seemingly funda-
mental ideas which we are apt to regard as original and
intuitive. We are like heirs to a fortune which has been
handed down for so many ages that the memory of those
who built it up is lost, and its possessors for the time being
regard it as having been an original and unalterable pos-
session of their race since the beginning of the world. But
reflection and inquiry should satisfy us that to our pre-
decessors we are indebted for much of what we thought
most our own, and that their errors were not wilful extra-
vagances or the ravings of insanity, but simply hypotheses,
justifiable as such at the time when they were propounded,
but which a fuller experience has proved to be inadequate.
It is only by the successive testing of hypotheses and
rejection of the false that truth is at last elicited. After all,
vol. 1 2 c
45o ANCIENT ERROR chap, n
what we call truth is only the hypothesis which is found to
work best. Therefore in reviewing the opinions and prac-,
tices of ruder ages and races we shall do well to look with
leniency upon their errors as inevitable slips made in the
search for truth, and to give them the benefit of that in-
dulgence of which we ourselves may one day stand in need :
cum excusatione itaque veteres audiendi sunt.
NOTE A
TABOOS ON COMMON WORDS
In the text I have examined some of the cases in which, from
motives of superstition, personal names are not allowed to be used
freely in ordinary discourse. Such cases are closely akin to the
instances in which a similar taboo is laid on common words, all the
more so because, as we have already seen, personal names are
themselves very often common words of the language, so that an
embargo laid upon them necessarily extends to many expressions
current in the commerce of daily life. It may be convenient,
therefore, for the sake of comparison to subjoin some examples of
the widespread custom which forbids certain persons at certain
times to make use of the ordinary words for common objects, and
constrains them consequently either to abstain from mentioning
these objects altogether, or to designate them by special terms
reserved for these occasions. I shall make no attempt to subject
the examples to a searching analysis or a rigid classification, but
will set them down as they come in a rough geographical order.
And since my native land furnishes as apt instances of the supersti-
tion as any other, we may start on our round from Scotland.
In the Atlantic Ocean, about six leagues to the west of Gallon
Head in the Lewis, lies a small group of rocky islets known as the
Flannan Islands. Sheep and wild fowl are now their only inhabit-
ants, but remains of what are described as Druidical temples and
the title of the Sacred Isles given them by Buchanan suggest that
in days gone by piety or superstition may have found a safe retreat
from the turmoil of the world in these remote solitudes, where the
dashing of the waves and the strident scream of the sea-birds are
almost the only sounds that break the silence. Once a year, in
summer-time, the inhabitants of the adjacent lands of the Lewis,
who have a right to these islands, cross over to them to fleece their
sheep and kill the wild fowl for the sake both of their flesh and
their feathers. They regard the islands as invested with a certain
sanctity, and have been heard to say that none ever yet landed in
them but found himself more disposed to devotion there than anv-
452 TABOOS ON COMMON WORDS
where else. Accordingly the fowlers who go thither are bound,
during the whole of the time that they ply their business, to observe
very punctiliously certain quaint customs, the transgression of which
would be sure, in their opinion, to entail some serious inconveni-
ence. When they have landed and fastened their boat to the side
of a rock, they clamber up into the island by a wooden ladder, and
no sooner are they got to the top, than they all uncover their heads
and make a turn sun-ways round about, thanking God for their
safety. On the biggest of the islands are the ruins of a chapel
dedicated to St. Flannan. When the men come within about twenty
paces of the altar, they all strip themselves of their upper garments
at once and betake themselves to their devotions, praying thrice
before they begin fowling. On the first day the first prayer is offered
as they advance towards the chapel on their knees ; the second is
said as they go round the chapel ; and the third is said in or hard
by the ruins. They also pray thrice every evening, and account it
unlawful to kill a fowl after evening prayers, as also to kill a fowl
at any time with a stone. Another ancient custom forbids the crew
to carry home in the boat any suet of the sheep they slaughter in
the islands, however many they may kill. But what here chiefly
concerns us is that so long as they stay on the islands they are
strictly forbidden to use certain common words, and are obliged to
substitute others for them. Thus it is absolutely unlawful to call
the island of St. Kilda, which lies thirty leagues to the southward,
by its proper Gaelic name of Hirt ; they must call it only " the high
country." They may not so much as once name the islands in which
they are fowling by the ordinary name of Flannan ; they must speak
only of " the country." " There are several other things that must not
be called by their proper names : e.g. visk, which in the language
of the natives signifies water, they call burn ; a rock, which in their
language is creg, must here be called cruey, i.e. hard ; shore in their
language expressed by claddach, must here be called vah, i.e. a cave ;
sour in their language is expressed gort, but must here be called
gaire, i.e. sharp ; slippery, which is expressed bog, must be called
soft ; and several other things to this purpose." 1 When Shetland
fishermen are at sea, they employ a nomenclature peculiar to the
occasion, and hardly anything may be mentioned by its usual name.
The substituted terms are mostly of Norwegian origin, for the
Norway men were reported to be good fishers.*2 Further, in setting
their lines the Shetland fishermen are bound to refer to certain
objects only by some special words or phrases. Thus a knife is
then called a skunie or tidlie ; a church becomes buanhoos or
banehoos ; a minister is upstanda or haydeen or prestingolva ; the
1 Martin's " Description of the see also Sinclair's Statistical Account
Western Islands of Scotland," in of Scotland, xix. 283.
Tinkerton's Voyages and Travels, iii. 2 A. Edmonston, Zetland Islands
579 sq. As to the Flannan Islands (Edinburgh, 1809), ii. 74.
TABOOS ON COMMON WORDS 453
devil is da auld chield, da sorrow, da ill-healt (health), or da black
tie/; a cat is kirser, fitting, vengla, or foodin} On the north-east
coast of Scotland there are some villages, of which the inhabitants
never pronounce certain words and family names when they are at
sea ; each village has its peculiar aversion to one or more of these
words, among which are "minister," "kirk," "swine," "salmon,"
"trout," and "dog." When a church has to be referred to, as often
happens, since some of the churches serve as landmarks to the
fishermen at sea, it is spoken of as the " bell-hoose " instead of the
"kirk." A minister is called "the man wi' the black quyte." It
is particularly unlucky to utter the word " sow " or " swine " or
" pig " while the line is being baited ; if any one is foolish enough
to do so, the line is sure to be lost. In some villages on the coast
of Fife a fisherman who hears the ill-omened word spoken will cry
out " Cold iron." In the village of Buckie there are some family
names, especially Ross, and in a less degree Coull, which no fisherman
will pronounce. If one of these names be mentioned in the hearing
of a fisherman, he spits or, as he calls it, " chiffs." Any one who
bears the dreaded name is called a " chiffer-oot," and is referred to
only by a circumlocution such as "Themanitdiz so in so," or "the
iaad it lives at such and such a place." During the herring-season
men who are unlucky enough to inherit the tabooed names have
little chance of being hired in the fishing-boats ; and sometimes,
if they have been hired before their names were known, they have
been refused their wages at the end of the season, because the boat
in which they sailed had not been successful, and the bad luck was
set down to their presence in it.2 Although in Scotland supersti-
tions of this kind appear to be specially incident to the callings of
fishermen and fowlers, other occupations are not exempt from them.
Thus in the Outer Hebrides the fire of a kiln is not called fire
(teifie) but aingeal. Such a fire, it is said, is a dangerous thing,
and ought not to be referred to except by a euphemism. " Evil be
to him who called it fire or who named fire in the kiln. It was
considered the next thing to setting it on fire." 3 Again, in some
districts of Scotland a brewer would have resented the use of the
word " water " in reference to the work in which he was engaged.
" Water be your part of it," was the common retort. It was supposed
that the use of the word would spoil the brewing.4
Manx fishermen think it unlucky to mention a horse or a mouse
on board a fishing-boat.5 The fishermen of Dieppe on board their
1 Ch. Rogers, Social Lift- in Scot- Freer, "The powers of evil in the
land, iii. 218. Outer Hebrides," Folk-lore, x. (1899),
2 W. Gregor, Folk-lore of the North- p. 265.
East of Scotland, pp. 199-201. 4 J. Mackenzie, Ten Years north
3 "Traditions, customs, and super- of the Orange River, p. 151, note I.
stitions of the Lewis," Folk-lore, vi. 6 J. Rhys, " Manx folk-lore and
(1895), P- x7°; Miss A. Goodrich- superstitions,"/'b/£-/0r£,iii.( 1892)^.84.
454 TABOOS ON COMMON WORDS
boats will not speak of several things, for instance priests and cats.1
German huntsmen, from motives of superstition, call everything by
names different from those in common use.2 In some parts of
Bavaria the farmer will not mention a fox by its proper name, lest
his poultry-yard should suffer from the ravages of the animal. So
instead of Fuchs he calls the beast Loinl, Henoloinl, Henading, or
Henabou* In Prussia and Lithuania they say that in the month of
December you should not call a wolf a wolf but " the vermin " {das
Gewiirm), otherwise you will be torn in pieces by the werewolves.4
In various parts of Germany it is a rule that certain animals may
not be mentioned by their proper names in the mystic season
between Christmas and Twelfth Night. Thus in Thiiringen they
say that if you would be spared by the wolves you must not mention
their name at this time.5 In Mecklenburg people think that were
they to name a wolf on one of these days the animal would appear.
A shepherd would rather mention the devil than the wolf at this
season ; and we read of a farmer who had a bailiff named Wolf, but
did not dare to call the man by his name between Christmas and
Twelfth Night, referring to him instead as Herr Undeert (Mr.
Monster). In Quatzow, a village of Mecklenburg, there are many
animals whose common names are disused at this season and
replaced by others: thus a fox is called "long-tail," and a mouse
" leg-runner " (B-oenloper). Any person who disregards the custom
has to pay a fine.6 In the Mark of Brandenburg they say that
between Christmas and Twelfth Night you should not speak of
mice as mice but as dinger ; otherwise the field-mice would multiply
excessively.7 According to the Swedish popular belief, there are cer-
tain animals which should never be spoken of by their proper names,
but must always be signified by euphemisms and kind allusions to
their character. Thus, if you speak slightingly of the cat or beat her,
you must be sure not to mention her name : for she belongs to the
hellish crew, and is a friend of the mountain troll, whom she often
visits. Great caution is also needed in talking of the cuckoo, the
owl, and the magpie, for they are birds of witchery. The fox must
be called " blue-foot," or " he that goes in the forest " ; and rats are
1 A. Bosquet, La Normandie roman- turn on his back and so bring cold
est/ue et merveilleuse (Paris and Rouen, weather. See James Teit, "The Thomp-
1S45), p. 308. son Indians of British Columbia,"
2 J. G. Gmelin, Reise durch Sibirien, Memoirs of the American Museum of
ii. 277. Natural History, vol. ii. part iv. (April
3 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde 1900), p. 374.
des Konigreichs Bayern, ii. 304. 5 W. Witzschel, Sagen, Sitten, und
4 Tettau und Temme, Die Volks- Gebrauche aus Thuriugen,p. 1 7 5, §30.
sagen Ostpreussens, Litthauens und 6 K. Bartsch, Sagen, Miirchcn, und
Westpreussens (Berlin, 1837), p. 281. Gebrauche aus Meklenburg, ii. p. 246,
Among the Thompson River Indians §§ 1273, 1274.
children may not name the coyote or 7 A. Kuhn, Aliirkische, Sagen, und
prairie-wolf in winter, lest he should Miirchen, p. 378, § 14.
TABOOS ON COMMON WORDS 455
" the long-bodied," mice " the small grey," and the seal " brother
Lars." Swedish herd-girls, again, believe that if the wolf and the
bear be called by other than their proper and legitimate names,
they will not attack the herd. Hence they give these brutes names
which they fancy will not hurt their feelings. The number of
endearing appellations lavished by them on the wolf is legion ; they
call him "golden tooth," " the silent one," " grey legs," and so on ;
while the bear is referred to by the respectful titles of " the old
man," "grandfather," "twelve men's strength," "golden feet," and
more of the same sort. Even inanimate things are not always to
be called by their usual names. For instance, fire is sometimes to
be called " heat " (lietta), not eld or ell ; water for brewing must be
called lag or lou, not vatn, else the beer would not turn out so well.1
The Lapps fear to call the bear by his true name, lest he should
ravage their herds ; so they speak of him as " the old man with
the coat of skin," and in cooking his flesh to furnish a meal they
may not refer to the work they are engaged in as " cooking," but
must designate it by a special term.2 The Finns speak of the bear
as " the apple of the wood," " beautiful honey-paw," " the pride of
the thicket," " the old man," and so on.3 And in general a Finnish
hunter thinks that he will have poor sport if he calls animals by
their real names ; the beasts resent it. The fox and the hare are
only spoken of as "game," and the lynx is termed "the forest cat,"
lest it should devour the sheep.4 Esthonian peasants are very
loth to mention wild beasts by their proper names, for they believe
that the creatures will not do so much harm if only they are called
by other names than their own. Hence they speak of the bear as
"broad foot " and the wolf as "greycoat."5 The Kamtchatkans
reverence the whale, the bear, and the wolf from fear, and never
mention their names when they meet them, believing that they under-
stand human speech.6 Further, they think that mice also under-
stand the Kamtchatkan language ; so in autumn, when they rob the
field-mice of the bulbs which these little creatures have laid up in
their burrows as a store against winter, they call everything by names
different from the ordinary ones, lest the mice should know what
they were saying. Moreover, they leave odds and ends, such as old
rags, broken needles, cedar-nuts, and so forth, in the burrows to
make the mice think that the transaction has been not a robbery
1 B. Thorpe, Northern Mythology, 4 Varonen, reported by Hon. |.
ii. 83 sq. ; L. Lloyd, Peasant Life Abercromby in Folk-lore, ii. (1S91),
in Sweden, p. 251. p. 245 sq.
2 C. Leemius, De Lapponibus Fin- - ,-, , ,r ., _.
7. ,.£ ... ■' Boeder - Ivreutzwald, Der Ehsten
viarclnae eoru mane liiurua, vita, et . ... , . , „ , .. . ... .
j- ■ . . .. . ,. ,,-, abeivlauhischc Georanche, Weisen nnd
relinone pristina commentatio (Copen- „ , . .,
x. c s Gewohnheiteit, p. 1 20.
hagen, 1767), p. 502 sq. r
3 Castren, Vorlesun^cn iiber die fin- ,! G. W. Steller, Beschreibung vpn
insche Mythologie, p. 201. dan Lande Kamischatka, p. 276.
456 TABOOS ON COMMON WORDS
but a fair exchange. If they did not do that, they fancy that the
mice would go and drown or hang themselves out of pure vexation ;
and then what would the Kamtchatkans do without the mice to
gather the bulbs for them ? They also speak kindly to the animals,
and beg them not to take it ill, explaining that what they do is done
out of pure friendship.1
In Africa the lion is alluded to with the same ceremonious
respect as the wolf and the bear in Northern Europe and Asia.
The Arabs of Algeria, who hunt the lion, speak of him as Mr. John
Johnson (Johan-ben-el-Johan), because he has the noblest qualities
of man and understands all languages. Hence, too, the first
huntsman to catch sight of the beast points at him with his finger
and says, " He is not there " ; for if he were to say " He is there,"
the lion would eat him up.2 The negroes of Angola always use the
word ngana ("sir") in speaking of the same noble animal, because
they think that he is " fetish " and would not fail to punish them
for disrespect if they omitted to do so.3 Bushmen and Bechuanas
both deem it unlucky to speak of the lion by his proper name ; the
Bechuanas call him "the boy with the beard."4 A certain spirit,
who used to inhabit a lake in Madagascar, entertained a rooted
aversion to salt, so that whenever the thing was carried past the
lake in which he resided it had to be called by another name, or it
would all have been dissolved and lost. The persons whom he
inspired had to veil their references to the obnoxious article under
the disguise of " sweet peppers." 5
I" India the animals whose names are most commonly tabooed are
the i..ake and the tiger, but the same tribute of respect is paid to
other beasts also. Sayids and Mussulmans of high rank in Northern
India say that you should never call a snake by its proper name,
but always describe it either as a tiger (s/ier) or a string (rassi).6 In
Telingana the euphemistic name for a snake, which should always
be employed, is worm or insect (furugu) ; if you call a cobra by
its proper name, the creature will haunt you for seven years and
bite you at the first opportunity.7 Ignorant Bengalee women will
not mention a snake or a thief by their proper names at night, for
fear that one or other might appear. When they have to allude
to a serpent, they call it "the creeping thing"; when they speak
of a thief, they say " the unwelcome visitor." s Other euphemisms
1 Steller, op. cit. p. 91 ; compare logical Institute, xvi. (1887), p. 84.
ib. pp. 129, 130. 5 T. Sibree, The Great African
- Certeux et Carnoy, IJ Algene rsland, p. 307 sq.
Traditionnelle, pp. 172, 17?. c _ . , ,r A , _ ..
3 t t iwr 4. : a i j ,; Tanjab Notes and Queries, 1. p. 1 s,
d . |. Monteiro, Angola and the a J ^ ' v ■"
. ^1^2
River Congo, ii. 116.
4 J. Mackenzie, Ten Years north of 7 North Indian Notes and Queries,
the Orange River, p. 151; C. R. i. p. 104, § 690.
Conder, in Journal of the Anthrofo- 8 Id., v. p. 133, § 372.
TABOOS ON COMMON WORDS 457
for the snake in Northern India are " maternal uncle " and
" rope." They say that if a snake bites you, you should not men-
tion its name, but merely observe "A rope has touched me."1
Natives of Travancore are careful not to speak disrespectfully of
serpents. A cobra is called " the good lord " {nalla tambiran) or
" the good snake " (nalla pambii). While the Malayalies of the
Shervaray Hills are hunting the tiger, they speak of the beast only
as "the dog."2 The Canarese of Southern India call the tiger
either " the dog " or " the jackal " ; they think that if they called
him by his proper name, he would be sure to carry off one of them.3
The jungle people of Northern India, who meet the tiger in his
native haunts, will not pronounce his name, but speak of him as
" the jackal " (g'/dar), or " the beast " (janwar), or use some other
euphemistic term. In some places they treat the wolf and the
bear in the same fashion.4 The Pankas of South Mirzapur will not
name the tiger, bear, camel, or donkey by their proper names ; the
camel they call " long neck." Other tribes of the same district only
scruple to mention certain animals in the morning. Thus, the
Kharwars, a Dravidian tribe, will not name a pig, squirrel, hare,
jackal, bear, monkey, or donkey in the morning hours; if they have
to allude to these animals at that time, they call them by special
names. For instance, they call the hare " the footed one " or " he
that hides in the rocks " ; while they speak of the bear as jigariya,
which being interpreted means " he with the liver of compassion."
If the Bhuiyars are absolutely obliged to refer to a monkey or a
bear in the morning, they speak of the monkey as "the tree-climber"
and the bear as " the eater of white ants." They would not . ,ntion
a crocodile. Among the Pataris the matutinal title of the bear is
"the hairy creature."5 The Kols, a Dravidian race of Northern
India, will not speak of death or beasts of prey by their proper
names in the morning. Their name for the tiger at that time of
day is " he with the teeth," and for the elephant " he with the
claws." c
In Annam the fear inspired by tigers, elephants, and other wild
animals induces the people to address these creatures with the
greatest respect as "lord" or "grandfather," lest the beasts should
take umbrage and attack them.7 In Laos, while a man is out
1 W. Crooke, Introduction to the Tribes and Castes of the North-Western
Popular Religion and Folklore of Pivvinces and Oudh, iii. 249 ; id.,
Northern India, p. 275. Introduction to the Popular Religion
- S. Mateer, Native Life in Travan- and Folklore of ATortheru India, p.
core, p. 320 sq. 218.
3 North Indian Notes ami Queries, 8 W. Crooke, Tribes and Castes of
v. p. 133, § 372. the North - Western Provinces and
4 W. Crooke, op. cit. p. 321. Oudh, iii. 314.
5 W. Crooke in North Indian A"otes " Mouhot, Travels in the Central
and Queries, i. p. 70, $ 579 ; id., Parts of Indo-China, i. 263 sq.
458 TABOOS ON COMMON WORDS
hunting elephants he is obliged to give conventional names to all
common objects, which creates a sort of special language for
elephant-hunters.1 So when the Tchames and Orang-Glai of Indo-
China are searching for the precious eagle-wood in the forest, they
must employ an artificial jargon to designate most objects of every-
day life; thus, for example, fire is called "the red," a she-goat be-
comes " a spider," and so on. Some of the terms which compose
the jargon are borrowed from the dialects of neighbouring tribes.2
At certain seasons of the year parties of Jakuns and Binuas go
out to seek for camphor in the luxuriant forests of their native
country, which is the narrow southern extremity of the Malay
Peninsula, the Land's End of Asia. They are absent for three
or four months together, and during the whole of this time the
use of the ordinary Malay language is forbidden to them, and they
have to speak a special language called by them the bassa kapor
(camphor language) or pantatig* kapur. Indeed not only have the
searchers to employ this peculiar language, but even the men and
women who stay at home in the villages are obliged to speak it
while the others are away looking for the camphor. They believe
that a spirit presides over the camphor-trees, and that without pro-
pitiating him they could not obtain the precious gum. If they
failed to employ the camphor language, they think that they would
have great difficulty in finding the camphor-trees, and that even
when they did find them the camphor would not yield itself up to
the collector. The camphor language consists in great part of
words which are either Malayan or of Malay origin ; but it also
contains many words which are not Malayan but are presumed to
be remains of the original Jakun dialects now almost extinct in these
districts. The words derived from Malayan are formed in many
cases by merely substituting a descriptive phrase for the common
term. Thus instead of rice they say " grass fruit " ; instead of gun
they say " far sounding " ; the epithet " short-legged " is substituted
for hog ; hair is referred to as " leaves," and so on.4 Similarly,
when the Kayans of Borneo are searching for camphor, they talk a
language invented solely for their use at this time. The camphor
itself is never mentioned by its proper name, but is always referred
to as " the thing that smells " ; and all the tools employed in collect-
ing the drug receive fanciful names. Unless they conform to this
1 E. Aymonier, Notes sitr le Laos, Taal- Land- enVolkenkunde van Neder-
p. 113- landsch-Lndie, xxxix. (1890), p. 31 sq.
2 Id., " Les Tchames et leurs 4 J. R. Logan, "The Orang Binua
Religions," Revue de PHistoire des of Johore," Journal of the Eastern
Religions, xxiv. (1891), p. 278. Archipelago and Eastern Asia, i.
3 Pantang is equivalent to taboo. (1847), pp. 249, 263-265; A. Bastian,
In this sense it is used also by the Die Vblker des bstlichen Asien, v.
Dyaks. See S. W. Tromp, " Een 37; W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, pp.
Dajaksch Feest," Bijdrageti tot de 212-214.
TABOOS ON COMMON WORDS 459
rule they suppose that the camphor crystals, which are found only in
the crevices of the wood, will elude them.1 In the western states of the
Malay Peninsula the chief industry is tin-mining, and odd ideas
prevail among the natives as to the nature and properties of the ore.
They regard it as alive and growing, sometimes in the shape of a
buffalo, which makes its way from place to place underground. Ore
of inferior quality is excused on the score of its tender years ; it will
no doubt improve as it grows older. Not only is the tin believed to
be under the protection and command of certain spirits who must
be propitiated, but it is even supposed to have its own special likes
and dislikes for certain persons and things. Hence the Malays
deem it advisable to treat tin ore with respect, to consult its con-
venience, nay, to conduct the business of mining in such a way that
the ore may, as it were, be extracted without its own knowledge.
When such are their ideas about the mineral it is no wonder that the
miners scruple to employ certain words in the mines, and replace
them by others which are less likely to give offence to the ore or
its guardian spirits. Thus, for example, the elephant must not be
called an elephant but " the tall one who turns himself about " ; and
in like manner special words, different from those in common use,
are employed by the miners to designate the cat, the buffalo, the
snake, the centipede, tin sand, metallic tin, and lemons. Lemons
are particularly distasteful to the spirits ; they may not be brought
into the mines.2 Again, the Malay wizard, who is engaged in snaring
pigeons with the help of a decoy-bird and a calling-tube, must on no
account call things by their common names. The tiny conical hut,
in which he sits waiting for the wild pigeons to come fluttering about
him, goes by the high-sounding name of the Magic Prince, perhaps
with a delicate allusion to its noble inmate. The calling-tube is
known as Prince Distraction, doubtless on account of the extra-
ordinary fascination it exercises on the birds. The decoy-pigeon
receives the name of the Squatting Princess, and the rod with a
noose at the end of it, which serves to catch the unwary birds, is
disguised under the title of Prince Invitation. Everything, in fact,
is on a princely scale, so far at least as words can make it so. The
very nooses destined to be slipped over the necks or legs of the
little struggling prisoners are dignified by the title of King Solo-
mon's necklaces and armlets ; and the trap into which the birds
are invited to walk is variously described as King Solomon's
Audience Chamber, or a Palace Tower, or an Ivory Hall carpeted
1 W. H. Furness, Folk-lore in Borneo Groot-Mandeling en Batang- Natal,"
(Wallingford, Pennsylvania, 1899 ; Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch
privately printed), p. 27. A special Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, Tweede
language is also used in the search for Serie, xiv. (1897), p. 276.
camphor by some of the natives of •
Sumatra. See Th. A. L. Heyting, - W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, pp.
" Beschrijving der onder - afdeeling 250,253-260.
460
TABOOS ON COMMON WORDS
with silver and railed with amalgam. What pigeon could resist
these manifold attractions, especially when it is addressed by the
respectful title of Princess Kapor or Princess Sarap or Princess
Puding ? l Once more, the fisher-folk on the east coast of the
Malay Peninsula, like their brethren in Scotland, are reluctant to
mention the names of birds or beasts while they are at sea. All
animals then go by the name of cheivek, a meaningless word which
is believed not to be understood by the creatures to whom it refers.
Particular kinds of animals are distinguished by appropriate epithets ;
the pig is the grunting cheiveh, the buffalo is the cheweh that says
uah, the snipe is the cheweh that cries kek-kek, and so on.2
In Sumatra the spirits of the gold mines are treated with as
much deference as the spirits of the tin-mines in the Malay Penin-
sula. Tin, ivory, and the like, may not be brought by the miners to
the scene of their operations, for at the scent of such things the
spirits of the mine would cause the gold to vanish. For the same
reason it is forbidden to refer to certain things by their proper
names, and in speaking of them the miners must use other words.
In some cases, for example in removing the grains of the gold, a
deep silence must be observed ; no commands may be given or
questions asked,3 probably because the removal of the precious
metal is regarded as a theft which the spirits would punish if they
caught the thieves in the act. Certainly the Dyaks believe that
gold has a soul which seeks to avenge itself on men who dig the
precious metal. But the angry spirit is powerless to harm miners
who observe certain precautions, such as never to bathe in a river
with their faces turned up stream, never to sit with their legs dangling,
and never to tie up their hair.4 Again, a Sumatran who fancies that
there is a tiger or a crocodile in his neighbourhood, will speak of the
animal by the honourable title of " grandfather " for the purpose of
propitiating the creature.5 So long as the hunting season lasts, the
natives of Nias may not name the eye, the hammer, stones, and in
some places the sun by their true names ; no smith may ply his
trade in the village, and no person may go from one village to
another to have smith's work done for him. All this, with the
exception of the rule about not naming the eye and the sun, is
done to prevent the dogs from growing stiff, and so losing the power
of running down the game.6 During the rice-harvest in Nias the
1 W. W Skeat, op. cit. p. 139 sq.
2 W. W. Skeat, op. cit. p. 192 sq.
3 J. L. van der Toorn, " Het ani-
misme bij den Minangkabauer der
Padagnsche Bovenlanden," Bijdragen
tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde -ran
Nederlandsch Indie, xxxix. (1890), p.
100.
4 Perelaer, Ethnographische Besch-
rijving der Dajaks, p. 215.
5 Nieuwenhuisen en Rosenberg,
" Verslag omtrent het eiland Nias,"'
Verhandelingen van het Bataviaaseh
Genootschap van Kunsten en Weten-
schappen, xxx. (1863), p. 115. Compare
Marsden, History of Sumatra, p. 292 ;
T. J. Newbold, Account of the British
Settlements in the Straits of J/a/acca,
ii. 192 sq.
0 J. W. Thomas, " De jacht op het
TABOOS ON COMMON WORDS 461
reapers seldom speak to each other, and when they do so, it is only
in whispers. Outside the field they must speak of everything by
names different from those in common use, which gives rise to a
special dialect or jargon known as "field speech." It has been
observed that some of the words in this jargon resemble words in
the language of the Battas of Sumatra.1 The Alfoors of Poso,
in Celebes, are forbidden by custom to speak the ordinary language
when they are at work in the harvest-field. At such times they
employ a secret language which is said to agree with the ordinary
one only in this, that in it some things are designated by words
usually applied in a different sense, or by descriptive phrases or
circumlocutions. Thus instead of "run" they say "limp"; instead
of "hand" they say "that with which one reaches"; instead of
" foot " they say " that with which one limps "; and instead of " ear "
they say "that with which one hears." Again, in the field-speech
"to drink" becomes "to thrust forward the mouth"; "to pass by"
is expressed by " to nod with the head "; a gun is "a fire-producer ";
and wood is "that which is carried on the shoulder." The writer
who reports the custom adds that the reason of it is not far to seek.
It is thought, he says, that the evil spirits understand ordinary
human speech, and that therefore its use in the harvest-field would
attract their attention to the ripe rice, and they might wantonly
destroy it. Beginning with a rule of avoiding a certain number of
common words, the custom has grown among people of the Malay
stock till it has produced a complete language for use in the fields.
In Minahassa also this secret field-speech consists in part of phrases
or circumlocutions, of which many are said to be very poetical ; and
here, too, it is used to keep the evil spirits in the dark as to the
intentions of the speakers.2 When a Bugineese or Macassar man is
at sea and sailing past a place which he believes to be haunted by
evil spirits, he keeps as quiet as he can ; but if he is obliged to speak
he designates common things and actions, such as water, wind, fire,
cooking, eating, the rice-pot, etc., by peculiar terms which are neither
Bugineese nor Macassar, and therefore cannot be understood by
the evil spirits, whose knowledge of languages is limited to these
two tongues.3 Natives of the island of Saleyer, which lies off the
south coast of Celebes, will not mention the name of their island
eiland Nias,*' Tijdschrift voor Indische Modigliani, Un Viaggio a Mas, p.
Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, xxvi. 593.
(1880), p. 275. 2 A. C. Kruijt, "Een en ander
1 L. N. H. A. Chatelin, " Gods- aangaande het geestelijk en maatschap-
dienst en bijgeloof der Niassers, " Tijd- pelijk leven van den Poso-Alfoer,"
schrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Mededeelingen van wege het Neder-
Volkenknnde, xxvi. (1880), p. 165 ; H. landsche Zendelinggenootschap, xxxix.
Sundermann, "Die Insel Nias und (1895), pp. 146-148.
die Mission daselbst," Allgemeine Mis- 3 B. F. Matthes, Bijdragen tot de
sions-Zeitschrift, xi. (1884), p. 349 ; E. Ethnologie van Zuid-Celebes, p. 107.
462 TABOOS ON COMMON WORDS
when they are making a certain sea-passage ; and in sailing they will
never speak of a fair wind by its proper name. The reason in both
cases is a fear of disturbing the evil spirits.1 When Galelareese
sailors are crossing over to a land that is some way off, say one or
two days' sail, they do not remark on any vessels that may heave
in sight or any birds that may fly past ; for they believe that were
they to do so they would be driven out of their course and not
reach the land they are making for. Moreover, they may not men-
tion their own ship, or any part of it. If they have to speak of the
bow, for example, they say " the beak of the bird " ; starboard is
named " sword," and larboard " shield." 2 The inhabitants of
Ternate and of the Sangi Islands deem it very dangerous to point
at distant objects or to name them wThile they are at sea. Once
while sailing with a crew of Ternate men a European asked one of
them the name of certain small islands which they had passed.
The man had been talkative before, but the question reduced him
to silence. " Sir," he said, " that is a great taboo ; if I told you we
should at once have wind and tide against us, and perhaps suffer a
great calamity. As soon as we come to anchor I will tell you the
name of the islands." The Sangi Islanders have, besides the
ordinary language, an ancient one which is only partly understood
by some of the people. This old language is often used by them
at sea, as well as in popular songs and certain heathen rites.3
The reason for resorting to it on shipboard is to hinder the evil
spirits from overhearing and so frustrating the plans of the voyagers.4
In some parts of Sunda it is taboo or forbidden to call a goat a
goat ; it must be called a " deer under the house." A tiger may
not be spoken of as a tiger ; he must be referred to as " the
supple one," "the one there," "the honourable," "the whiskered
one," and so on. Neither a wild boar nor a mouse may be men-
tioned by its proper name ; a boar must be called " the beautiful
one " (masculine) and the mouse " the beautiful one " (feminine).
When the people are asked what would be the consequence of
breaking a taboo, they generally say that the person or thing
would suffer for it, either by meeting with a mishap or by falling
ill. But some say they do not so much fear a misfortune as
experience an indefinite feeling, half fear, half reverence, towards a
institution of their forefathers. Others can assign no reason fo
observing the taboos, and cut inquiry short by saying that " It is so
:;
1 H. E. D. Engelhard, " Mededee- Volkenkicnde van Nederlandsch-Indie,
lingen over het eiland Saleijer," Bij- xlv. (1895), p. 508.
dragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volken- 3 S. D. van de Velde van Cappellan,
kunde van Neerlandsch- Indie , Vierde " Verslag eener Bezoekreis naar de
Yolgreeks, viii. (1884), p. 369. Sangi- eilanden," Mededeelingen van
2 M. J. van Baarda, " Fabelen, Ver- wege het Nederlandsche Zendelingge-
halen en Overleveringen der Galelaree- nootschap, i. (1857), pp. 33, 35.
zen," Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en 4 A. C. Kruijt, op. tit. p. 148.
TABOOS ON COMMON WORDS 463
because it is so." 1 When small-pox invades a village of the Saka-
rang Dyaks in Borneo, the people desert the place and take refuge in
the jungle. In the daytime they do not dare to stir or to speak above
a whisper, lest the spirits should see or hear them. They do not
call the small-pox by its proper name, but speak of it as "jungle
leaves" or "fruit" or "the chief," and ask the sufferer, "Has he
left you ? " and the question is put in a whisper lest the spirit should
hear.2 Natives of the Philippine Islands were formerly prohibited
from naming the land when they were at sea, and from speaking
of water when they were journeying by land.3
When we survey the instances of this superstition which have
now been enumerated, we can hardly fail to be struck by the
number of cases in which a fear of spirits, or of other beings regarded
as spiritual and intelligent, is assigned as the reason for abstaining
in certain circumstances from the use of certain words. The speaker
imagines himself to be overheard and understood by spirits, or
animals, or other beings whom his fancy endows with human intelli-
gence ; and hence he avoids certain words and substitutes others in
their stead, either from a desire to soothe and propitiate these beings
by speaking well of them, or from a dread that they may understand
his speech and know what he is about, when he happens to be
engaged in that which, if they knew of it, would excite their anger
or their fear. Hence the substituted terms fall into two classes
according as they are complimentary or enigmatic ; and these ex-
pressions are employed, according to circumstances, for different
and even opposite reasons, the complimentary because they will be
understood and appreciated, and the enigmatic because they will not.
We can now see why persons engaged in occupations like fishing,
fowling, hunting, mining, reaping, and sailing the sea, should abstain
from the use of the common language and veil their meaning in
dark phrases and strange words. For they have this in common
that all of them are encroaching on the domain of the elemental
beings, the creatures who, whether visible or invisible, whether
clothed in fur or scales or feathers, whether manifesting themselves
in tree or stone or running stream or breaking wave, or hovering
unseen in the air, may be thought to have the first right to those
regions of earth and sea and sky into which man intrudes only to
plunder and destroy. Thus deeply imbued with a sense of the alb
pervading life and intelligence of nature, man at a certain stage
of his intellectual development cannot but be visited with fear
or compunction, whether he is killing wild fowl among the stormy
1 K. F. Holle, "Snippers van den (London, 1866), i. 208; Spenser St.
Regent van Galoeh," Tijdschrift voor John, Life in the Forests of the Far
Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, East,2 i. 71 sq.
xxvii. (1882), p. 101 sq. 3 J. Mallat, Les Philippines (Paris,
2 Ch. Brooke, Ten Years in Sarawak 1 S46), i. 64.
464 TABOOS ON COMMON WORDS
Hebrides, or snaring doves in the sultry thickets of the Malay
Peninsula ; whether he is hunting the bear in Lapland snows, or
the tiger in Indian jungles, or hauling in the dripping net, laden
with silvery herring, on the coast of Scotland ; whether he is search-
ing for the camphor crystals in the shade of the tropical forest, or
extracting the red gold from the darksome mine, or laying low with
a sweep of his sickle the yellow ears on the harvest field. In all
these his depredations on nature, man's first endeavour apparently
is by quietness and silence to escape the notice of the beings whom
he dreads ; but if that cannot be, he puts the best face he can on
the matter by dissembling his foul designs under a fair exterior, by
flattering the creatures whom he proposes to betray, and by so
guarding his lips, that, though his dark ambiguous words are under-
stood well enough by his fellows, they are wholly unintelligible to
his victims. He pretends to be what he is not, and to be doing
something quite different from the real business in hand. He is
not, for example, a fowler catching pigeons in the forest ; he is a
Magic Prince or King Solomon himself1 inviting fair princesses
into his palace tower or ivory hall. Such childish pretences suffice
to cheat the guileless creatures whom the savage intends to rob or
kill, perhaps they even impose to some extent upon himself; for we
can hardly dissever them wholly from those forms of sympathetic
magic in which primitive man seeks to effect his purpose by imitat-
ing the thing he desires to produce, or even by assimilating himself
to it. It is hard indeed for us to realise the mental state of a Malay
wizard masquerading before wild pigeons in the character of King
Solomon ; yet perhaps the make-believe of children and of the stage,
where we see the players daily forgetting their real selves in their
passionate impersonation of the shadowy realm of fancy, may afford
us some glimpse into the workings of that instinct of imitation or
mimicry which is deeply implanted in the constitution of the human
mind.
1 The character of King Solomon You shall be a rebel unto God,
appears to be a favourite one with the And a rebel unto God's Prophet Solo-
Malay sorcerer when he desires to in- mon,
gratiate himself with or lord it over the For 1 am God's Prophet Solomon. "-
powers of nature. Thus, for example, See W. W. Steat, Malay Magic, p. 273.
in addressing silver ore the sage ob- ^Q doubt the fame of his wisdom has
serves : — earned for the Hebrew monarch this
' ' If you do not come hither at this very distinction among the dusky wizards
moment of the East.
ADDENDA
Pp. 31 sq., 33 sq. — Similarly among the Thompson River
Indians of British Columbia, " while the men were on the
war-path, the women performed dances at frequent intervals.
These dances were believed to secure the success of the expedition.
The dancers flourished their knives, threw long sharp-pointed sticks
forward, or drew sticks with hooked ends repeatedly backward and
forward. Throwing the sticks forward was symbolic of piercing or
fighting off the supposed enemy, and drawing them back was
symbolic of drawing their men from danger. The stick with the
hooked end was the one supposed to be the best adapted for this
latter purpose. The women always pointed their weapons toward
the enemy's country. They painted their faces red, and sang
while dancing, and supplicated the weapons of war to preserve
their husbands, and help them kill many enemies. Some had
eagle-down stuck on the points of their sticks. When the dance
was at an end these weapons were hidden. If a woman had a
husband in the war-party, and she thought she saw hair or part of
a scalp on the weapon when taking it out, she knew that her
husband had killed an enemy. If she thought she saw blood on
the weapon, it was a sign that her husband had been wounded
or killed " (James Teit, " The Thompson Indians of British
Columbia, Memoirs of the American ATuseum of Natural History,
vol. i. part iv. (April 1900), p. 356).
* • T •
Pp. 51-53. — Among the Thompson River Indians of British
Columbia, "when a child lost its teeth, each one, as it fell out,
was taken by the father and stuck into a piece of raw deer-flesh
until out of sight. This was then given to a dog, who of course
swallowed it whole " (James Teit, op. cit. p. 308). The writer who
describes this custom was unable to ascertain the reason for it.
We may conjecture that on the principles of sympathetic magic it
was intended to make the child's new teeth as strong as a dog's.
In West Sussex some thirty years ago a maid-servant " remonstrated
strongly against the throwing away of the cast teeth of children,
vol.. 1 2 H
466 ADDENDA
affirming that should they be found, and gnawed by any animal,
the child's new tooth would be, for all the world, like the animal's
that had bitten the old one. In proof of her assertion she named
old Master Simmons, who had a very large pig's tooth in his upper
jaw, a personal blemish that he always averred was caused by his
mother's having thrown one of his cast teeth away by accident into
the hog-trough" (Charlotte Latham, "West Sussex Superstitions
lingering in 1868," Folk-lore Record, i. (1878), p. 44). Among the
heathen Arabs, when a boy's tooth fell out, he used to take it
between his finger and thumb and throw it towards the sun,
saying, "Give me a better for it." After that his teeth were sure
to grow straight, and close, and strong. " The sun," says Tharafah,
" gave the lad from his own nursery-ground a tooth like a hail-stone,
white and polished " (Rasmussen, Additamenta ad historiam Arabum
ante Isla7nisnmm, p. 64). Thus the reason for throwing the old
teeth towards the sun would seem to have been a notion that the
sun sends the hail, from which it naturally follows that he can send
you a tooth as white and smooth as a hail-stone.
P. 91. — Among the Thompson River Indians of British
Columbia the same power of making good or bad weather is
attributed to twins. They are supposed to be endowed with the
faculty by the grisly bear, whose special protection they enjoy. See
James Teit, op. tit. p. 310 sq.
.'. 256. — The rule not to fall asleep in a house im-
mediately after a death has taken place in it, which is observed
by the Aru Islanders, was observed also by the Thompson River
Indians of British Columbia, and for the same reason. When a
death has been announced, friends and neighbours assembled in
the house of the deceased and remained there as guests until after
the burial. " During this time they must not sleep, else their souls
would be drawn away by the ghost of the deceased or by his
guardian spirit " (James Teit, op. tit. p. 327). •
P. 269 sq. — Among the Thompson River Indians of British
Columbia " the soul is supposed to leave the body through the
frontal fontanelle. Shamans can see it before and shortly after
it leaves the body, but lose sight of it when it gets further away
toward the world of the souls. Therefore, when a person believes
that his soul has been takes away, he must send a shaman in
pursuit within two days, else the latter may not be able to overtake
it. When a shaman sees a soul in the shape of a fog, it is a sign
that the owner will die. When a shaman discovers that a person's
soul has left him, he repairs at once to the old trail. If he does
not find its tracks there, then he makes a systematic search of the
ADDENDA 467
graveyards, and almost always finds it in one of them. Sometimes
he succeeds in heading off the departing soul by using a shorter
trail to the land of the souls. Shamans can stay for only a very
short time in that country. The shaman generally makes himself
invisible when he goes to the spirit-land. He captures the soul he
wants just upon its arrival, and runs away with it, carrying it in his
hands. The other souls chase him ; but he stamps his foot, on
which he wears a rattle made of deer's hoofs. As soon as the souls
hear the noise, they retreat, and he hurries on. When they over-
take him once more, he stamps his foot again. Another shaman
may be bolder, and ask the souls to let him have the soul he seeks.
If they refuse, he takes it. Then they attack him. He clubs
them, and takes the soul away by force. When, upon his return to
this world, he takes off his mask, he shows his club with much
blood on it. Then the people know he had a desperate struggle.
When a shaman thinks he may have difficulty in recovering a
soul, he increases the number of wooden pins in his mask. The
shaman puts the soul, after he has obtained it, on the patient's
head, thereby returning it to the body " (James Teit, op. cit. p.
P. 324 sq. — Among the Thompson River Indians of British
Columbia " those who handled the dead body, and who dug
the grave, were isolated for four days. They fasted until the
body was buried, after which they were given food apart from the
other people. They would not touch the food with their ha. ;,
but must put it into their mouths with sharp-pointed sticks. They
ate off a small mat, and drank out of birch-bark cups, which,
together with the mat, were thrown away at the end of the four
days. The first four mouthfuls of food, as well as of water, had to
be spit into the fire. During this period they bathed in a stream,
and were forbidden to sleep with their wives " (James Teit, op. cit.
P- 331)-
END OF VOL. I
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